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BRINGING MEN TO CHR 



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Class 
Book. 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIE 



Personal Work 



or 



Bringing Men to Christ 



By 
C. N. BROADHURST 



Author of " Wireless Messages ; or, 

Possibilities Through 

Prayer." 



» 



Cincinnati: JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 
New York: EATON AND MAINS 



^311 







COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY 
JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 



ITCU31999S 



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PREFACE. 

Isr presenting this volume to the reading 
public, I do so with an earnest desire that it 
may inspire, with a stronger hope, activity 
and courage, many among that vast multi- 
tude of personal workers who, on the wide 
sea of human life, are so industriously manip- 
ulating the gospel net in their efforts to catch 
men for Christ. If any by reading it are 
stimulated to wiser and more successful ac- 
tion in advancing the Master's Kingdom, 
then I am abundantly compensated for the 
time I have employed in writing the book. 

C. N. Beoadhuest. 



Personal Work ; or, Bringing Men 
to Christ. 



Andbew. 

One of .the most beautiful examples of per- 
sonal work furnished us by the New Testa- 
ment Scriptures is that of Andrew. He first 
found Jesus himself; then second, found his 
own brother Simon and brought him to the 
Savior. Our first duty is to find Jesus our- 
selves. Our second duty is to find our ir- 
religious brother and bring him to the Sav- 
ior. In less than four years after Andrew 
led his brother to Christ, that brother, Simon 
Peter, in the city of Jerusalem, on the day 
of Pentecost, preached a sermon under the 
influence of the Holy Spirit that swept three 
thousand souls into the Master's Kingdom. 
Possibly the person that you led to Chirst 
will some time be instrumental, directly or 
indirectly, in winning a multitude of human 
lives for the Kingdom of our Lord. 0, the 
exalted privilege of leading lives to Christ! 



PEBSONAL WORK 

Johist Dempster. 
In the year 1812 a camp-meeting, costing 
considerable preparation and expense, was 
lield in an Eastern State. After continuing 
for some time without any special religious 
interest it came to a close. The only visible 
result was one convert, a tin peddler, who 
was a young man about eighteen years old. 
The meeting was pronounced a failure. But 
in the course of time it was proven to the 
world that that camp-meeting was exceed- 
ingly successful, for the one convert, the tin 
peddler, was John Dempster, one of Amer- 
ica's most successful and useful preachers 
and educators. He won souls for Christ in 
the United States and Canada. He went to 
South America as a missionary, where he 
remained a number of years extending the 
boundaries of the Master's Kingdom in the 
land of the Southern Cross. Then he re- 
turned to the United States and filled with 
great efficiency some of the leading pulpits 
of his denomination in New York City. Then 
throwing himself into the educational arena, 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

lie established a Bible Institute in Concord, 
New Hampshire, and laid the foundation of 
that flourishing educational institution at 
Evanston, Illinois, from whose walls so 
many preachers and teachers have gone forth 
into the world, mentally and morally 
equipped, to advance the cause of Christ. 
Yes, that was a very successful camp-meet- 
ing, the results of which eternity alone can 
tell. So when we have expended the very 
best of our time, talents, and money to ad- 
vance the Master's Kingdom, and the only 
visible result is one soul converted to Christ, 
we must not be discouraged, for that soul 
may start into operation spiritual forces that 
will radiate through nations and generations, 
bestowing its benedictions on the race of man 
in time and eternity. 

Seeds. 

"We should not be discouraged if we do 
not always see the immediate results of our 
labors. I heard of certain seed that sleep in 
the earth for ages before germination. I 

9 



PEESONAL WOEK. 

have heard of the young of certain insects 
that lie in the state of death for eighty years. 
Long after the hand that scattered the seed 
has mingled with the dust and generations 
after the insect that had deposited the 
young had ended its flight, those seeds would 
spring up a forest of mighty trees, and those 
insects would become the mothers of im- 
mense multitudes. So it is with the seeds of 
eternal truth that we are sowing for the 
Master. We are sowing knowledge, piety, 
and immortality, but do not always see the 
seed spring forth. Our instruction appears 
to be forgotten, our liberality unnoticed, and 
our labors in vain. But be of good cheer, for 
the seeds that you have sown are in good 
ground. They are in the hearts of men and 
are watched over by the vigilant, all-seeing 
eye of God. They are protected and fer- 
tilized by the preserving powers of God's 
grace and can not decay. The time is rapidly 
coming in the glorious future when they will 
spring forth and produce a bountiful harvest 
for Heaven. As sure as you have sown seeds 

10 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

of truth you will some time come forth bring- 
ing in your sheaves. 

William Penn. 

A little more than two centuries ago a 
Quaker preacher, on the banks of the Isis in 
England, planted a seed of Christian truth 
in the life of a gay, pleasure-loving young 
man, who at that time was a student in Ox- 
ford University. Twenty years afterward 
that same student was in the wilds of the 
American wilderness, on the banks of the 
Delaware, scattering broadcast the fruitage 
of that planting. Our Christian civilization, 
as we see it to-day, permeating with its 
forces of peace and righteousness the nations 
of the earth, is only the beginning of an end- 
less harvest that has largely resulted from 
that single grain of good that the Quaker 
preacher planted so many years ago in the 
life of William Penn. A life won for Christ 
to-day, according to the laws of spiritual 
propagation, may bring a multitude into 
God's Kingdom some time in the future. 



PERSONAL WORK. 

Nathaxael. 
When Philip brought Xathanael to Christ 
he performed a piece of personal work that 
will affect the moral character of all the ages 
of the future. Just a few words from the 
omniscient Master immediately dispelled 
Xathanael 's reluctance to accept his Messiah- 
ship and made him forever a faithful dis- 
ciple. Then after our Lord's ascension, im- 
pelled by the inspiration of the Pentecostal 
power, this disciple went forth to do his part 
in the world's evangelization. He went to 
far-off India, to Africa, to Asia Minor, and 
to various parts of the world, which were to 
be evangelized by this Spirit-filled messenger 
of God. "While in the course of a few years 
a cruel martyrdom terminated his earthly 
career, the spiritual forces that he had 
started into motion in the first century will 
sweep beyond the fires of the judgment and 
bathe in salvation's light the hills of the eter- 
nal beyond. Philip did a great work for the 
Kingdom of the Master when he brought Xa- 
thanael to Christ. God has given us a greater 

12 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

honor than He has granted the angels, that 
of winning souls to righteousness. 

William of Ween. 

Many years ago a humble, hard-working 
evangelist in Wales, after a long season of 
very hard work, declared that the only visible 
result of his labors was one person con- 
verted to righteousness. But that convert 
was William of Wern, who is said to have 
brought one-third of the principality to 
Christ. 

Coal. 

Coal is buried sunshine. The tons and 
multiplied millions of tons that occupy miles 
and miles of space beneath the surface of the 
earth in so many different countries and 
climes is nothing more or less than beautiful 
sunbeams that nature by her mysterious 
chemical processes has sealed up and laid 
away centuries ago to sleep in its black 
prison house for the future use of man. 
Under certain conditions of combustion the 



,3 



PEESONAL WOEK. 

sunbeams are liberated from their imprison- 
ment and leap forth in light, heat, and power 
to expend their energies in making valuable 
contributions to the comfort, benefit, and con- 
venience of our advancing civilization. 

Human life is God's sunshine. Although 
sometimes buried down deep in the darkened 
depths of sin and degradation, under the con- 
ditions of salvation its light, heat, and power 
are liberated from their imprisonment of 
evil and leap forth with a supernatural 
energy to illuminate the world with the sun- 
beams of Heaven's light. The chief mean- 
ing of the Great Commission is that the hand 
of the Church, spiritualized by the power of 
the Holy Ghost, is to touch these darkened 
lives in personal work for Christ and help to 
release them from their captivity of sin. 

" Down in the human heart, 
Crushed by the tempter, 

Feelings lie buried that grace can restore. 
Touched by a loving hand, 
Awakened by kindness, 

Chords that were broken will vibrate once more." 



w 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

Gipsy Smith. 
Sometimes a touch of sympathy wins a 
soul for Christ. Yes, in its final results one 
touch has brought ten thousand souls into 
the spiritual Kingdom of Christ. During 
Gipsy Smith's first visit to America he was 
for a time in Brooklyn, and Mr. Sankey took 
him out for a drive. While they were pass- 
ing through Prospect Park, Gipsy Smith 
said, "Mr. Sankey, do you remember being 
in London fifteen years ago?" "Yes, in- 
deed, " replied Sankey. "Mr. Moody and I 
held a meeting at Burdett Roads, London, 
in 1874, fifteen years ago." "Do you re- 
member one Saturday afternoon that you 
and Mr. Moody took a drive out to Epping 
Forest and visited a gypsy camp ? And while 
you were there a few gypsy lads came up to 
your carriage and you put your hand on the 
head of one of them and said, i May the Lord 
make a preacher out of you, my boy?' " "I 
remember it very well," said Sankey. "I 
am that boy," said Gipsy Smith. We can 
imagine better than we can describe Sankey 's 



PERSONAL WORK. 

surprise. ^0/' lie said, " little did I think 
tliat the successful evangelist and fine gospel 
singer of whom I had heard so much and 
who by his mighty God-given powers was 
sweeping so many thousands into the King- 
dom of Grod in Europe and America, was the 
little boy I met in that gypsy camp." Reach 
out your hand, my brother, and start by a 
touch of kindness an electric current of sym- 
pathy that will dash with its man-reforming 
influences on to the end of time. 

The Opal. 

A very wealthy lady was showing her 
costly opals to Mrs. Ballington Booth. Mrs. 
Booth expressed her surprise at their dull- 
ness and lack of luster. "0, just wait a min- 
ute," the lady said. Then taking them in 
her warm hand she closed it and held 
them there for a moment. Then opening 
the hand the dullness and lack of luster had 
entirely disappeared and they blazed and 
flashed and sparkled with a radiating bril- 
liancy that to Mrs. Booth was a surprise and 



i<L 



BEINGING MEN TO CHBIST. 

delight. There are human lives that are 
dull, sad, and lusterless because of sorrow, 
disappointment, and sin. But under the in- 
fluence of the warm energizing touch of the 
hand of Christian sympathy their sadness 
and dullness are destroyed, and hope, love, 
and courage radiate from their lives in the 
brilliancy of Christian service as it flashed 
down through the human hand from Him 
who declared that He is the Light of the 
world. The human hand is a powerful con- 
ductor of good things to sad, discouraged 
men. 

Catch Men. 

At the miraculous draught of fishes on the 
sea of Galilee, near the city of Caperuanm, 
Simon Peter expressed his surprise. But 
Jesus replied to him, "Froin henceforth thou 
shalt catch men. ' ' And if the fishing net was 
prophetical of the gospel net this prophecy 
had its fulfillment on the day of Pentecost 
when this apostle caught three thousand 
souls in the net of the gospel. The desire 



PERSONAL WOBK 

of the Master is that every Christian in this 
world should be a fisher of men. If each 
one performs his duty as he should, the time 
is not far distant when the whole inhabited 
world will be enclosed in the net of the gospel. 

John B. Gough. 

Several years ago, one Sunday evening, 
a sad, discouraged young man was saunter- 
ing around under the elm trees in the Public 
Square of Worcester, Massachusetts. He 
was out of humor with himself and all the 
world. Physically, mentally, and spiritually 
he was almost a wreck; for he was an in- 
ebriate recovering from a hard, protracted 
spree. A waif on the current of the river of 
life, he was rapidly going toward the preci- 
pice of destruction. A kind voice saluted 
him and a sympathetic hand was laid upon 
his shoulder. "Mr. Gough, come with me 
down to the town hall to the temperance 
lecture to-night." This was an invitation 
extended by Joel Stratton, a boot crimper. 
At first Gough refused, but the kind per- 

18 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

sistency of Stratton overcame his reluctance 
and side by side they walked to the hall. 
After listening to the persuasive appeals 
of the lecturer, Gough, with a trembling 
hand, signed the pledge of total abstinence. 
For more than a quarter of a century Eu- 
rope and America were electrified by the life 
and language of this reformed man, who in 
bold antagonism to sin in public and private, 
on the platform and street led thousands 
from sin to righteousness. When the loud 
applause of two continents arose in honor 
of John B. Gough, it seemed to those who 
knew of the circumstances of his reforma- 
tion that it was only the echo of the tap of 
Joel Stratton on the shoulder that Sunday 
evening when he said, "Come and go with 
me down to the town hall to the temperance 
meeting to-night." 

William Wirt. 

An accomplished and wealthy Christian 
lady of Richmond, Virginia, was out riding 
one day when she saw a well-dressed young 

19 



PERSONAL WORK. 

man lying by the road in the hot sun dead 
drunk. The lady alighted, dipped her hand- 
kerchief in a stream of water nearby and 
spread it over his sunburned face. Then 
returning to the city she reported his case 
to the police. Shortly afterwards a stranger 
called at her house and meeting her said: "I 
am ashamed to look you in the face, for I 
am the young man that you so tenderly cared 
for the other day. The name on the hand- 
kerchief with which you covered my drunken 
face revealed to me the name of my benefac- 
tress. I have come to thank you for your 
kindness and also to tell you that I have 
signed the temperance pledge. With my 
hand on my mother's Bible I have sworn, 
God being my helper, that I will never taste 
another drop of intoxicating liquor as long 
as I live." He kept his pledge. His res- 
cuer became his wife. His brilliant talents 
won him a high position in the service of 
his country. This reformed drunkard, so 
^strangely reformed through the kindness of 
a Christian lady, was none other than the 

20 



BRINGING MEN TO CHEIST. 

eminent William Wirt, the popular Ameri- 
can lawyer and famous author, who by his 
very successful literary and legal life has 
indelibly written his name on the imperish- 
able scroll of fame. Eemember that insig- 
nificant actions sometimes produce great 
results. Every new day brings new oppor- 
tunities to be improved, new obligations to 
be assumed, new responsibilities to be real- 
ized, and a multiplicity of new duties to be 
performed. 0, there is a great work for us 
to do ! Let us be up and doing, for the night 
cometh. when no man can work. Each mo- 
ment is big with possibilities. 

The Potter. 

A man visiting a factory where pot- 
tery was being manufactured stopped and 
watched a workman shape with his hands the 
clay into the proper figure. l ' Why don 't you 
use machinery to do that kind of work?" 
inquired the visitor. The man replied: "We 
have tried all kinds of machinery and failed. 
Somehow or other it needs the human touch." 

21 



PEESONAL WORK. 

God has some kind of work that can not be 
done by machinery. This human clay, into 
whose nostrils, in the beginning, God 
breathed the breath of life, needs very much 
the human touch to help it assume the image 
of Christ, Ecclesiastical machinery is good 
and all right in its place, but it can never 
be made to take the place of the human touch. 
For personal work we can find no mechanical 
proxy. 

Sunday Schools. 

"Live to-day," was the advice John Wes- 
ley once gave Mrs. Bradburn who, trying to 
carry out his directions, suggested the idea 
of teaching children to Eobert Eaikes. This 
idea Eaikes put into execution, and the re- 
sult was the beginning of the modern Sun- 
day school. Last Sabbath twenty-eight mil- 
lions of people went to Sunday school, and 
the truth of God in the hand of the hu- 
man potter helped to mold characters for 
lives of righteousness and the Kingdom of 
God. 

22 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

Rules for Catching Fish. 

There are three good rules for catching 
fish. First, keep yourself out of sight. 
Second, keep yourself a little further out of 
sight. Third, keep yourself still a little fur- 
ther out of sight. The same three rules hold 
good in catching men. Self too frequently 
comes into sight and becomes the great ob- 
stacle in the way of our getting hold of the 
ones we are trying to catch with the gospel 
hook. 

August Toplady. 

A century and a half ago an English lady 
accompanied by her son visited Ireland. It 
was a rule of her life to attend church every 
Sunday. When the Sabbath day arrived she 
inquired of her son where they should at- 
tend church that day. He replied that there 
were no churches in the community where 
they were visiting. " However, " he said, 
"I understand that an Irish layman will con- 
duct a religious service in a barn nearby." 
"Well, then/' replied the mother, "we will 

23 



PERSONAL WORK. 

worship with the people in the barn." They 
attended the meeting. The leader was an 
intensely religions, earnest, and enthusias- 
tic, though a very illiterate man. Under the 
influence of this plain, humble service the 
son was converted. He afterwards became 
a celebrated preacher and hymn writer. His 
name was August Toplady, and his most pop- 
ular hymn was "Rock of Ages." This hymn 
more than any other has fallen from the lips 
of dying Christians. And for the last one 
hundred and twenty-five years it has been 
sung in many different languages through- 
out the length and breadth of Christendom, 
and by Christian missionaries throughout the 
benighted regions of heathendom, while 
through its precious influences thousands 
have been led into the Kingdom of Christ. 
No doubt that angels have rejoiced over the 
glorious results of that humble service con- 
ducted by that plain Irish layman in an 
old barn in Ireland a century and a half 
ago. 

24 



BEINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

The Leper. 
Nearly nineteen hundred years ago, near 
the bnsy city of Capernaum, a leper ran 
and knelt at the feet of Jesus and prayed, 
"Lord, if Thou wilt Thou canst make me 
clean." Jesus put forth His hand and 
touched him, and immediately he was 
cleansed. As soon as the Master's hand 
touched the leper's body it imparted to him 
the healing touch, and instantly he was 
healed. Leprosy is a type of sin. As leprosy 
is to the body so sin is to the soul. God has 
no other hands with which to touch this lep- 
rous world than those of His Christian peo- 
ple^ — yours and mine. This world is not dy- 
ing so much from the lack of bread and meat, 
but for the need of human sympathy. 0, 
there are so many disappointed, down-trod- 
den, and discouraged human lives that would 
revive, and hope and work and rejoice under 
the electrifying influences of a human touch ! 
Personal work, the human touch, a genuine 
interest in a tired, weary, unfortunate world 
is one great duty to be continually performed 
by the Church of Jesus Christ. 

25 



PEKSONAL WOBK. 

Edwin Hatfield. 

At a street corner one cold wintry night, 
Harlan Page talked to Edwin Hatfield about 
quitting sin and becoming a Christian. 
Under the influence of that conversation 
young Hatfield decided for Christ. This was 
the starting point of one of the most fruit- 
ful ministries that New York City has ever 
seen. Eemember that the biggest results for 
good invariably emanate from personal work 
for Christ. 

The Woman of Samaria. 

Our Savior furnished us a beautiful ex- 
ample of personal work when He sat on the 
curbstone of Jacob's well, at the noon hour, 
and told the woman of Samaria of that living 
water that could quench the spiritual thirst of 
men and women. Although she was a wicked, 
profligate, contentious woman, He told her 
that He was the Messiah. She believed it 
and, leaving her water pot at the well, ran to 
the city and told the people that she had found 
the Christ. The whole city of Sychar came 

26 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

out to see Him and extended to Him the 
courtesies of their hospitality, to which He 
cheerfully responded. When He saw the 
multitude coming to Him He told His dis- 
ciples that the ' ' fields were white to the har- 
vest." Nineteen centuries have passed by 
since then, and still the field of the world is 
white to the harvest. So does it not behoove 
us to heed the injunction of the Master and 
pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth 
laborers into the harvest, for the harvest is 
plenteous, but the laborers are few? 0, the 
pressing demand for personal workers in the 
great harvest field of the world! 

Editoe Bkowk. 

Once, Mr. Moody was holding a meeting 
in an American town. Among the many 
people by whom it was attended was an edi- 
tor of a newspaper, who was one of the 
brightest men in America. But he was an 
infidel. He first came to the meeting through 
pure curiosity. After hearing Mr. Moody 
preach, his heart was touched, but his mind 

27 



PERSONAL WORK. 

was not convinced. Approaching the 
preacher he said, "I want to talk to you.' : 
Moody turned him over to his wife and said 
to Mrs. Moody, "Emma, sit down and talk to 
this man and show him the wav of life." 
Xow Mrs. Moody is a very quiet lady and 
does not believe in women preaching. She 
had never spoken in public in her life, but 
she sat down beside this man, opened her 
Bible, and text by text, step by step, she drove 
the truth home. So when Editor Brown, the 
infidel, walked out of that church that day 
he was a Christian man. He started a re- 
ligious newspaper on original lines called 
the Rom's Horn, a paper that has won 
thousands of souls for Christ. And this 
great and useful man became a Christian 
through the personal work of a quiet little 
woman. 

Mary Magdalexe. 
Our Master designs that we should use 
great dispatch in the world's evangelization. 
The first person to whom He made His ap- 
pearance after His resurrection was Mary 

28 



BBINGING MEN TO CHKIST. 

Magdalene. She was so rejoiced at the fact 
of her Lord's resurrection, that in her great 
ecstasy she was inclined to grasp Him with 
her hands. But He said, " Touch Me not, 
but go quickly and tell the disciples that I 
am risen from the dead." He evidently 
meant for her to lose no time in the passive 
enjoyment of the realization of His resur- 
rection, but go quickly and tell the glorious 
news to others. We were dead in trespasses 
and sin, but the spirit of the Christ has been 
resurrected in our lives. It is not the will 
of the Master that we spend our time in the 
passive enjoyment of the pleasures of this 
spiritual resurrection, but go quickly and tell 
its glorious truths to earth's perishing mil- 
lions. 

Dr. George C. Lorimer. 
Many years ago an earnest Christian 
lady, anxious to extend to others the glad 
news of the gospel, was frequently engaged 
in the distribution of religious tracts. One 
day she handed a tract to a wild-spirited 
young actor. He received it politely and 

29 



PEESONAL WORK. 

read it carefully. Under its influence lie was 
induced to attend church. The influence of 
the church service led him to Christ. He 
afterwards became a great preacher and won 
by his Spirit-baptized sermons multitudes to 
a better life. This eminent minister was 
none other than the famous Dr. George C. 
Lorimer, pastor of Tremont Temple, Boston. 
Through his influence Russell H. Conwell 
was led into the ministry, and became the 
popular pastor of the great Baptist Temple 
in Philadelphia, which in that city has done 
so much for the advancement of the Master's 
Kingdom. From these two great temples 
have emanated moral forces that have ra- 
diated to the periphery of the planet. 

H. C. Trumbull. 

How about those people with whom you 
work every day in the store, the office, the 
shop? If you are a consistent Christian you 
are continually wielding an influence over 
them for good. Then wisely and affection- 
ately utilize every particle of that influence 

30 



BKINGING MEN TO CHBIST. 

to win them for Christ, Once there were two 
young men at work in the same office who 
entertained for each other the very highest 
respect. One of them was converted by 
means of a letter received from a Christian 
friend. He immediately became anxious to 
win his office companion to Christ, One day 
he expressed to him a wish that he was a 
Christian. Then it was with a shamed face 
that he confessed that he was a Christian, 
but such a negative one that it was not dis- 
coverable to the young man who had worked 
by his side for a whole year. The young 
man won by the letter was H. C. Trumbull, 
who afterwards became that famous editor, 
preacher, and author whom the religious and 
literary world so greatly delight to honor. 
This lukewarm office mate lost a great op- 
portunity of doing a mighty work for Christ. 
He lost the privilege of ever afterwards hav- 
ing his life filled with that joy that he was a 
co-worker with God in that wide field of use- 
fulness so worthily filled by Henry Clay 
Trumbull. 

31 



PEBSONAL WORK. 

Dr. Lyman Beecher. *■/ — 
When Dr. Lyman Beecher was on his 
deathbed, just a short time before he went v y 
into eternity, some one ventured to ask him, 
"Dr. Beecher, will you please tell us what 
you consider the greatest work that a man 
can do in this world?" "The greatest 
work," replied the dying theologian, "is not 
to rule a kingdom. It is not political nor 
ecclesiastical power; neither is it scientific, 
philosophical, nor even theological knowledge. 
The greatest work that a person can do in 
this world is to lead a soul to Jesus Christ." 

Bishop Asbury. 

Once when Bishop Asbury had just fin- 
ished a long preaching tour of six thousand 
miles, traveling the whole distance by horse- 
back, fording rivers, passing through danger- 
ous forests, crossing deserts, valleys, moun- 
tains, and hills, and experiencing all the hard- 
ships incident to a pioneer preachers 's life 
on the wilds of the American frontier, he 
learned that the only visible result that his 

32 



BRINGING MEN TO CHEIST. 

long trip and earnest preaching had pro- 
duced, as far as human eyes could see, was 
one conversion — one soul led to Christ. The 
bishop rejoiced and expressed his willing- 
ness to undertake another trip of like dis- 
tance and hardship for the privilege of se- 
curing a similar result. "For," he said, 
"the time, labor, and expenditure is so small 
when compared to the value of a soul." An 
immortal soul is worth so much that all the 
mathematicians of the earth and sky can not 
calculate its value. 

Daniel Websteb. 

Daniel Webster once said: "If we work 
on marble, it will perish. If we work on 
bronze, time will efface it. If we build tem- 
ples, they will crumble to the dust ; but if we 
work on immortal souls and imbue them with 
just principles of action teaching them to 
fear the wrong and love the right, we engrave 
on the tablets of human character that which 
all the cycles of time can not obliterate and 
that which will brighten and blaze with in- 

33 



PERSONAL WORK 

creasing resplendency while the eternal ages 
march. 

His Beothee. 
It is very necessary, indeed, that every 
one of us believe with all our hearts in the 
great doctrine of the Fatherhood of God and 
the brotherhood of man; that Jesus Christ 
is man's only Savior, and that the paramount 
duty of the Christian world is to bring 
the un-Christian world to Christ. Some 
years ago when they were digging that big 
drain near Victoria Park, London, the earth 
caved in and buried a number of men alive. 
A corps of workingmen were immediately 
delegated to remove the earth and, if possible, 
save the buried men. While they were work- 
ing a man came walking leisurely to the place 
of the disaster and stood in an attitude of in- 
difference, with his hands in his pockets and 
a smile on his face, watching the workmen. 
At last a man said, * * Bill, I don't see how 
you can be so indifferent. ' ' "Why?" quer- 
ied Bill. "Well, well, didn't you know that 

your brother Jim was one of the men buried 

34 



BBINGING MEN TO CHKIST. 

in this ditch? " "Brother Jim? No, in- 
deed!" exclaimed the man, as he jerked his 
hands our of his pockets, threw off his coat, 
and began to dig with all his might to save 
his buried brother. If we could only realize 
that every man buried in the ditch of tres- 
passes and sins is our brother, we would take 
our hands out of our pockets, throw off our 
coats of indifference, and go to work with a 
greater earnestness in the salvation of the 
lost. 

President Harrison. 
Benjamin Harrison, the twenty-third 
President of the United States, was a Chris- 
tian man, a member of the Church, and taught 
a Sunday school class in the church to which 
he belonged in his resident city, Indianapolis. 
One Sunday morning he overheard a Church 
official talking to some young men about be- 
coming Christians. One young man replied 
that he could not honestly become a Church 
member, as he did not have that intelligent 
knowledge of the Scripture and the meaning 

of Christianity that he felt that a Church 

35 



PERSONAL WORK. 

member should possess. The next evening, 
at eight o'clock, this young man's landlady 
was surprised to see Benjamin Harrison, ex- 
President of the United States, standing on 
her doorstep, ringing her doorbell. When 
she opened the door he inquired for the young 
man. She said that he was upstairs, but for 
him to come into the parlor, and that she 
would call him. "No," said Mr. Harrison. 
"I prefer to see him in his room." So he 
went upstairs and, meeting the young man, 
told him that he had overheard the conver- 
sation between the Church official and him 
yesterday and had come to help him out. 
Mr. Harrison had brought his Bible along 
and, sitting down together in that little bed- 
room, Mr. Harrison unfolded to him the 
Scriptures. He talked to him and prayed 
with him and gave him the necessary in- 
struction. "Now," the ex-President said, 
"it is time for me to go." Looking at 
his watch he discovered that it was two 
o 'clock in the morning. He had been with 
the young man from eight until two. In 

36 



BBINGING MEN TO CHEIST. 

trying to win a soul for Christ time had 
passed more rapidly than he had imagined. 
But he won him, and the next Sunday he 
united with the Church. Since the days of 
Thomas Jefferson the most intellectual man 
that has occupied the Presidential chair was 
Benjamin Harrison. Some of the most ear- 
nest workers of the Church have been some 
of the greatest statesmen of the world. 

William E. Gladstone. 

A city missionary in London visited a crip- 
pled boy who lived with his parents in an old 
house in the slum district. He was surprised 
to find the boy a bright Christian. In that 
poverty-stricken room he saw a large orange 
on the table near a bouquet of beautiful flow- 
ers. "Who brought these to you?" inquired 
the missionary. "0, I have forgotten the 
man's name," said the boy; "but he is the 
man who. makes the big speeches over in that 
big house." He pointed with his hand to- 
ward the House of Parliament. "0," ex- 
claimed the astonished missionary, "Mr. 

37 



PEESONAL WOEK. 

Gladstone?" "Yes," replied the boy. "He 
comes to see me every week. He always 
brings me fruits and flowers and other nice 
things, and always reads his Bible to me and 
then prays with me. He was the one who 
helped me to become a Christian. " So W. E. 
Gladstone, the greatest statesman of the 
nineteenth century, counted it a privilege to 
go among the city slums, enter a hovel, and 
lead a crippled boy to Christ. 

Gabkiel. 

Gabriel, the highest archangel of heaven, 
the one that stands before the throne of God, 
would be glad to have the privilege of com- 
ing to earth and visiting the poorest hovel 
in the wickedest city and lead the most 
wretched street Arab to Christ. But that is 
not the divine plan. God designs to save this 
world, not through angelic but human instru- 
mentalities. 0, the exalted honor that God 
has accorded to man — that of leading souls 
from the darkness of sin into the bright light 

38 



BRINGING MEN TO CHEIST. 

of salvation ! Man is to do a work that angels 
can not do — the work of winning souls. 

Chemicalized Mud. 

Mr. Buskin took an ounce of mud from the 
footpath of a manufacturing town and gave 
it a chemical development. It was shown by 
the analysis to contain clay, sand, soot, and 
water. "When he chemicalized the clay he 
produced a beautiful substance that refused 
to receive all other rays of light except the 
blue. Then it was that he discovered that 
he had produced a beautiful sapphire. The 
chemicalization of the sand produced a sub- 
stance that received only the purple, green, 
and red. Then he rejoiced that the sand had 
given to him the opal. Then through the 
scientific processes of chemistry the soot 
changed into a bright sparkling substance 
that constantly emitted with great vividness 
all the brightness of the sun. From this he 
discovered that he had made a diamond. The 
water was changed into a star of snow. So 

39 



PEESONAL WOEK. 

from the mud in a footpath in a manufactur- 
ing town he found sapphires, opals, dia- 
monds, and stars. Then is it not true that 
from the lower walks of life, that from the 
lowest strata of society, there are some very 
ordinary folks who under the developing in- 
fluences of the gospel might become sap- 
phires, opals, diamonds, and stars in the spir- 
itual Kingdom of our Lord? 

Jeeey McAuley. 

" Awful Gardner," a converted prize 
fighter, preached to the prisoners in Sing 
Sing prison and Jerry McAuley, a convict 
with a fifteen-year sentence, was converted. 
Through the influence of this one convert a 
revival began that swept through the cells 
and the lives of the prisoners, and resulted 
in the salvation and reformation of a large 
number of wicked men. In 1864, seven years 
before the expiration of his prison term, 
Governor John A. Dix, of New York, gave 
Jerry his pardon. The pardoned man went 
back to the fourth ward in New York City, 

40 



BBINGING MEN TO CHEIST. 

and while associating with bad men fell into 
sin. Jerry McAuley fell. But through the 
instrumentality of Mr. A. S. Hatch, a Wall 
Street banker, he was reclaimed. His rec- 
lamation seemed to be as great an uplifting 
epoch in his life as his conversion. On the 
eighth day of October, 1872, Jerry McAuley, 
assisted by his wife, established the Water 
Street Mission at 316 Water Street, New 
York. This was the first Eescue Mission in 
the history of the world. Here the congested 
population of slumism congregated in great 
numbers, and on the lives of these unfortu- 
nate degenerates and criminals he poured the 
bright light of the gospel of Jesus Christ, 
and multitudes were led into lives of right- 
eousness. October, 18, 1884, Jerry McAuley 
died, and his was one of the largest funerals 
New York had ever seen. May 30, 1886, Sam 
Hadley, one of Jerry's converts, took charge 
of the Mission and accomplished even a 
greater work than that performed by his ef- 
ficient predecessor. The slum elements from 
the ends of the earth, of every nationality, 

41 



PERSONAL WORK. 

language, and clime, seemed to pass through 
his mission and receive the impress of the 
gospel of Jesus Christ. The contribution 
that this mission has made toward the puri- 
fication of the civilization of the earth, eter- 
nity will reveal. From an earnest gospel 
sermon preached in Sing Sing prison by a 
converted prize fighter has emanated moral 
forces that have radiated in their man-saving 
influences to the ends of the earth. Great 
are the possibilities for the accomplishment 
of good that God has placed in the hands of 
the Christian world. 

Sun of Righteousness. 

For two long hours the summer sun had 
been pouring its heat and light down on an 
old, filthy, unkept, unsanitary street. A 
scientist, looking at it, said, "I can see con- 
sumption germs dying by the millions." 
Then he continued: "The sun is the great- 
est disease destroyer known to the world of 
science. It has been repeatedly demonstrated 
by scientific experiments that the sunny side 

42 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

of the house or hospital is healthier than the 
side away from the sun." When I heard the 
declaration I remembered that it was claimed 
that the material sun was an emblem of the 
Sun of righteousness and that physical dis- 
ease was a type of sin. Then I thought of 
Malachi's prophecy recorded in the last book 
of the Old Testament, which said that the 
Sun of righteousness would arise with heal- 
ing in His wings. Many a Christian mission, 
located in some wicked, degraded, poverty- 
stricken part of a city, has sent its spiritual 
light blazing across these morally diseased 
districts, destroying these germs of sin and 
illuminating dark lives with salvation's glory 
as they came beaming down from Him who 
said, "I am the Light of the world." 

The Earl of Shaftesbury. 

A very successful Christian worker in 
London was requested by a friend to tell him, 
if he could, the cause that had first started 
him in the way that had led him to such mar- 
velous success in the Christian life. The 

43 



PERSONAL WORK 

friend was very much surprised when the 
Christian worker replied : "I was once a crim- 
inal, locked in a prison cell. My intention 
was to spend the rest of my life in crime. 
But one day the Earl of Shaftesbury visited 
me in my cell. The first thing he did was to 
give, me a warm handshake and a friendly 
slap on the shoulder as he said, i Hurrah 
for you, Jack! you will make a man yet.' 
Simultaneously with that kind, encouraging, 
magnetic greeting of that manly man there 
entered into my heart a desire to be a man. I 
resolved right there and then to quit the life 
of a criminal and to lead the life of a Chris- 
tian. I have been trying ever since then to 
put that resolution into execution. 

HUNGRY FOR A HANDSHAKE. 

A pastor in the city was passing through 
the park one Saturday afternoon. He saw 
a young man sitting on a settee under a shade 
tree. There was a tired, disappointed look 
on his young face. The preacher approached 
him, smiled, and said : ' ' Good afternoon. Are 

44 



BBINGING MEN TO CHEIST. 

you a stranger in the city?" Yes sir," was 
the reply. "I want to shake your hand," 
said the preacher, "All right," replied the 
young man ; ' ' I am hungry for a handshake. ' ' 
Then the preacher sat down by him and they 
had a heart-to-heart talk. The boy said that 
his home was two hundred miles away in 
another State. Believing that he was old 
enough to make his own living he had told 
the homefolks good-bye, and had taken 
leave of the old church with its Sunday 
school, prayer-meetings, and its young peo- 
ple's meetings that he had loved so much, and 
had come to the city to find work. He had 
tried his best for ten days, but could not 
find a job. "You are the first person who 
has shaken hands with me in ten days." 
"People in the city do not shake hands very 
much," replied the preacher. "But I am 
the pastor of the church on the corner of 
Fifteenth and "Washington Streets, and if you 
will come to my Sunaay school to-morrow 
morning I may help you to secure a posi- 
tion." The next morning promptly at the 

45 



PERSONAL WORK. 

Sunday school hour the young man walked 
into the church and shook hands with the 
preacher. He told the minister that his 
friendly handshake and encouragement of 
yesterday had made him strong and brave, 
and that shortly after they had separated he 
had secured what he thought to be a very 
fine position. The preacher rejoiced with him 
over his success and invited him to attend 
his church. The young man accepted the in- 
vitation and afterwards deposited his mem- 
bership with that congregation. Fifteen 
years have gone by since then. This young 
man, grown to strong maturity, is one of 
the leading and wealthy citizens of that city, 
and also one of the most liberal supporters 
of that Church. That preacher has often 
said, "The best investment that I ever made 
for God in my life was when I shook hands 
with that discouraged country boy in the 
city park." The world is full of people who 
are hungry for a handshake. Let us make 
the investment and receive our reward. It is 
bread cast upon the waters that will return 

46 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

increased a hundred-fold. It is an invest- 
ment that pays back with interest com- 
pounded again and again, making rich the in- 
vestor. If you will encourage others, God 
will encourage you, is a law inherent in the 
universe. 

God's Fustgeb. 
William Dodge, the lumber merchant, and 
John Rodgers, the banker, both lived in the 
same town where 'they began their existence. 
They had been associated together all their 
lives as childhood playmates, boyhood chums, 
and manhood companions. Mr. Dodge was 
a Christian man and an active Church worker, 
while Mr. Rodgers could be properly classed 
with those who were non-Christian, though 
he frequently attended church in company 
with his Christian wife. For more than a dec- 
ade William Dodge had prayed daily that 
God would save his good friend, John Rodg- 
ers. One day he was especially concerned 
for his friend's salvation. Just after the 
noon hour he went to his room and prayed 
in great earnestness for God to save his 

47 



PERSONAL WORK. 

friend that day. He said: "0 Father, touch 
him with Your finger. Touch him with Your 
finger. Touch him with Your finger, and 
save him to-day." Then he suddenly re- 
membered that he was asking God to do 
something for his friend that he had never 
done himself. As long as he had known him 
he had never spoken a word to him on the 
subject of religion. So donning his hat and 
walking into the street, he started toward 
the Rodgers ' bank. In a few moments he was 
there. Entering the bank he was soon stand- 
ing in the door of the president's office. 
There sat John Rodgers, the bank's presi- 
dent, in his big office chair near his elegant 
desk on which he had just been writing. 
These old friends always called each other by 
their first names. " Hello, Bill," said Rodg- 
ers; "I am glad to see you. Come in and 
take a chair. " " Thank you, John, ' ' answered 
Dodge, as he complied with the request 
and looked tenderly into the eyes of his old 
friend, wondering how to begin. " Anything 
special, Bill?" inquired Rodgers. "Yes," 

48 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

replied Dodge. "I have come to tell you 
that I am ashamed of myself." "What are 
yon ashamed of yourself for?" asked Rodg- 
ers, smiling at the earnest, intelligent facial 
expression of his old friend. "I am ashamed 
of myself, John," continued Dodge, "because 
I have known you all your life and have 
talked to you about business, politics, mar- 
kets, and crops, but have neglected to talk to 
you about the most important topic of all." 
"What is that, Bill?" "Well, I have never 
asked you to become a Christian. ' ' "No, you 
never have, " said Rodgers, * i and I have often 
wished that you would." Then the president 
of the bank arose and closed the office door 
and bolted it, and turning around said, i ' Bill, 
you know how to pray, don't you?" "I 
know how to try," said Dodge. "Well, 
then," said Rodgers, "kneel down by this 
chair and ask the Lord to help me to fully 
surrender myself to His service. I have been 
hoping for many years that an opportunity 
like this would present itself in my life, and 
now that it has come I propose to improve it. " 

49 



PERSONAL WORK. 

The two men knelt and Dodge prayed. "When 
that short prayer was finished they arose 
and shook hands. Then banker said, "Bill, 
I promise you from this time on that I will 
be a Christian to the best of my ability." 
The men separated, one going to his lumber 
office and the other returning to his bank 
work. Next Sunday at the close of the morn- 
ing service, when the preacher extended an 
invitation to persons desiring membership 
in his Church to come and unite, the congre- 
gation was surprised to see John Eodgers, 
the richest banker in the town, walk down the 
aisle and present himself for Church mem- 
bership. He was gladly received, and ever 
afterwards manifested the most beautiful 
characteristics of a Christian life. William 
Dodge and John Eodgers, two consecrated 
Christian laymen, are now the official mem- 
bers of their old home Chucrh, and are large 
contributors to both its material and spirit- 
ual advancement. Mr. Dodge often says that 
when you pray the Lord to touch a man with 
His finger, to remember that you are the 

50 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

Lord's finger and go and touch him your- 
self. We are co-laborers with Christ and 
His representatives in this world that He 
died to save. 

The Peksonal Touch. 

A big revival was in progress in a pop- 
ular city church, conducted by a celebrated 
evangelist. It was during an evening serv- 
ice, and the entire seating capacity of the 
large auditorium was occupied by an in- 
tensely interested congregation. After the 
sermon there was an after-meeting, and the 
evangelist requested the Christian workers 
to go out into the congregation and talk to 
sinners, pray with them, and lead them to 
Christ. Near the center of the church sat 
an irreligious young man to whom no one 
had spoken. He leaned forward and, placing 
his head on the back of the seat in front of 
him, wept bitter tears of repentance. 
Another young man who had been a Christian 
for more than two years, but whose Christian 
life had been very passive, for during these 

51 



PERSONAL WORK. 

two years he had never asked any one to 
become a Christian, sat near the platform. 
The evangelist, looking at the lukewarm 
young man, inquired if he was a Christian. 
The answer was an affirmative nod. Point- 
ing to the penitent in the center of the room 
the preacher inquired, "Do you know him?" 
"Yes sir," was the reply. "Is he a Chris- 
tian?" "No sir," came the quiet answer. 
"Then go and talk to him." "I don't know 
how." "Go and talk to him," commanded 
the evangelist. Then the young Christian 
arose and slowly and reluctantly obeyed. Sit- 
ting down by the side of his penitent friend 
he whispered kindly: "George, they have 
sent me to talk to you about becoming a 
Christian, and I am such a poor Christian 
myself that I do n't know what to say. But 
I hope you will become a Christian and a 
good deal better one than I am. Anything 
that I can do to help you into the Christian 
life I will cheerfully and gladly do. If you 
think it best, we will both kneel down right 
here by this seat and pray God to make you 

52 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

know that Christ has forgiven your sins." 
The two boys went down on their knees and 
prayed in silence. Soon George reached out 
his hand and said, as he slapped the other 
young man on the shoulder, "It is all right, 
Sam, I am converted as sure as you are liv- 
ing." They both arose, walked down the 
aisle, and reported the good news to the 
evangelist, who rejoiced with them, together 
with the angels in heaven over one sinner 
saved from sin. George, smiling through his 
tears, said: "Sam, you just came to me in 
time. I was getting ready to leave the church, 
and if I had gone away perhaps I would never 
have been saved." "But, George, I did not 
want to go," said Sam; "the evangelist made 
me. When I got to you I did not do much. 
The Lord did it all. And now it seems to me 
that I am happier than you are. If this is 
the kind of a blessing that God gives to per- 
sonal workers, I am determined to do per- 
sonal work as long as I live." This young 
man devoted his life to soul winning and won 
many hundreds for Christ. All were not 

53 



PERSONAL WORK. 

won as easily as George. Some surrendered 
as readily, while others refused to respond 
to his kind invitation and continued to live 
a life of sin. But of the hundreds that he 
did win for Christ, many also became soul 
winners, and the blessing that came to his 
own life as a result of his personal work 
was a rich compensation for his service as 
well as a valuable contribution to the Mas- 
ter's Kingdom. Sam and George are both 
popular and successful preachers. They are 
pastors of large Churches in neighboring 
cities in a Western State. Thus it is that 
many efficient ministries have their begin- 
nings in the service of the Christ. 

Matthew. 

After healing the paralytic, Jesus walked 
down toward the sea of Galilee. Passing the 
receipt of custom He saw Matthew, the 
publican, busy with the work of collecting 
taxes. He stopped long enough to invite the 
busy man to become His disciple, who im- 
mediately responded to the invitation. Al- 

54 



BRINGING MEN TO CHBIST. 

though Matthew was very rich and occupied 
a lucrative position in the employment of the 
Roman Government, he instantly handed in 
his resignation and became a true follower of 
the Nazarene. As a public annunciation of his 
disciple ship he made a great banquet of which 
Jesus was the Guest of honor, and to which 
was invited a large circle of his old publican 
friends and associates. He was afterward 
one of the twelve who constituted the College 
of Apostles. After our Lord's ascension and 
the Holy Spirit's descension, he remained 
in Judea for eight years and preached 
the gospel to his own nation, for Matthew 
was a Jew. Then impelled by a mighty spirit 
of evangelism he went forth from his own 
people as a foreign missionary and labored 
for the salvation of lost men in the distant 
parts of the earth. Finally in a city of 
Ethiopia he finished his work bravely, dying 
the death of a martyr. Inspired by the Holy 
Spirit he wrote the first historical book of 
the New Testament. In this he gave us a 
record of the Sermon on the Mount in its 

55 



PERSONAL WORK. 

fullness and a number of parables not re- 
corded by the other three evangelists. It 
was first written in Hebrew and then trans- 
lated into Greek, Latin, German, English, 
French, Chinese, and the various languages 
and dialects of the earth. Together with the 
other sixty-five books that constitute the ca- 
nonical Scriptures it has been a mighty factor 
in carrying the gospel light to the successive 
generations of the earth for the last nineteen 
hundred years. So that day when our Lord 
performed that beautiful piece of personal 
work at the receipt of the custom, in the 
suburbs of Capernaum, He started into 
operation forces that have brightened the 
lives of millions in the centuries past, and 
will bless the lives of millions in the cen- 
turies to come and gild with increasing splen- 
dors the cycles of eternity. Thank God for 
the privilege of personal work! 

Chaeles H. Spuegeon. 

A short sermon preached by a Methodist 
exhorter in a small chapel in Colchester, Eng- 

56 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

land, caused a young man in the congregation 
to decide for Christ. That decision was the 
beginning of an exceedingly successful Chris- 
tian life. Right there and then was launched 
upon the sea of time one of the most fruitful 
ministries of the nineteenth century, for the 
boy was Charles H. Spurgeon, one of Eng- 
land's greatest preachers. 

The One Auditor. 

Once Dr. Lyman Beecher preached a ser- 
mon in an out-of-the-way country church. 
It was in the winter time. The weather was 
very cold and the roads were blocked with 
snow. Only one man came to church. The 
preacher preached to him, told him good- 
bye, mounted his horse, and returned home. 
Twenty years afterward Dr. Beecher was 
traveling through the State of Ohio. In a 
certain town he met a stranger who 
gave him a friendly salutation and, call- 
ing him by his name, said, "Dr. Beecher, 
do you remember twenty years ago, one 
cold winter day when you preached to 

57 



PERSONAL WORK. 

one man in a country church?" "Yes 
sir," replied the doctor, "I remember it 
very well, and if you are the man, I have 
been wanting to see you ever since." "I 
am that man," was the answer, "and that 
sermon made a preacher out of me. I am 
pastor of that church yonder." And he 
pointed to a large church building in full 
view. The converts of that sermon are scat- 
tered all over the State of Ohio. 

Opportunities. 

Show me an opportunity to save a soul? 
As well might a person ask to be shown wood 
in the forest or water on the sea as to ask to 
be shown an opportunity to save a soul in this 
world of blood-bought immortals. Opportu- 
nities are as frequent and as numerous as the 
passing hours of the day. They press around 
us like an angelic host awaiting our improve- 
ment to enrich our lives and the lives of those 
about us with their glorious results. 



58 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

Paul. 
When Paul was a prisoner, living in his 
own hired house at Rome, he was constantly 
engaged in personal work. The soldiers who 
watched him were of the Imperial Guard, 
which was the very flower of the Roman 
army. These were so changed that there 
were six or eight different soldiers with him 
every twenty-four hours. Many of these, 
under the influence of his powerful person- 
ality and gospel talks, were converted from 
heathenism to Christianity. The military 
authorities then sent them to different and 
distant parts of the Roman Empire, where 
as Christian missionaries they won other 
people to Christ. It is said that Christianity 
was first introduced into England by one of 
these converted soldiers. Tradition tells us 
that Seneca, the great Roman statesman and 
writer, was converted under Paul, and for- 
ever afterward tried to inject the teachings 
of Christ into the politics of Rome. There 
were members of Caesar's household won for 
Christ, as is evidenced by Paul's letter to 

59 



PERSONAL WORK. 

the Philippians. So Paul's hired house was 
a missionary training school where mission- 
aries were trained and went forth scattering 
the glad gospel news to the ends of the earth. 
The gradual molding of public sentiment 
for Christianity continued to increase until 
the year 313, when the Roman Empire be- 
came politically Christian. 

Senatoe Robekt Toombs. 

Senator Robert Toombs and Bishop 
George Pierce were classmates in college and 
fast friends all through life, though for many 
years Toombs was a very wicked man. The 
senator had a beautiful home and a lovely 
Christian wife, whom he almost worshiped. 
Bishop Pierce frequently enjoyed the hospi- 
tality of the Toombs mansion and often 
talked to his old friend about becoming a 
Christian. One day when he was the sena- 
tor's guest he said, "Something is going to 
happen after awhile that will go mighty hard 
with you, Toombs. " "What is that?" in- 
quired the senator. "You and your lovely 

60 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

wife will be separated forever. She will go 
to heaven and you will go to hell." "0, that 
can't be," replied Toombs. "Yes, it can be 
and will be, and you will never see her 
again." "Pierce, do you think that? do you 
believe that?" "Yes, I know it. Unless you 
repent and ask God to save you, you and your 
wife will be separated forever. ' ' Toombs was 
silent for some time, and then said, "Pierce, 
I could not stand that. I can not bear to 
think of such a thing." That conversation 
set Toombs to thinking and also to praying, 
He sought Christ, was converted, joined the 
Church with his wife, and to the end of his 
life was a consecrated Christian layman, who 
did much for the advancement of his Master's 
Kingdom. The Bible tells us that "He that 
winneth sinners is wise." 

Robekt Moffat. 

That old Scotch layman was abnormally 
conscientious when he rebuked his pastor for 
preaching for a whole year and only winning 
one boy for Christ. But that boy was Robert 

61 



PEESONAL WOEK. 

Moffat, who afterward became one of the 
great missionary leaders of the Church. Pos- 
sibly that preacher did more for the advance^ 
ment of the Kingdom of Christ that year than 
any other preacher in all Scotland. 

Eev. J. J. Dolliver. 

Eev. J. J. Dolliver, the father of United 
States Senator Dolliver, was one Sunday rid- 
ing along the road horseback. He overtook 
a tall, awkward looking boy carrying a string 
of fish. The boy had been fishing on Sunday. 
The preacher did not scold him for his Sab- 
bath desecration, but talked to him kindly 
and asked him what he was going to make 
out of himself when he became a man. He 
got the boy's confidence and pointed him to 
Christ. The awkward boy became T. B. 
Hughes, a successful minister in Iowa. He 
was the father of E. H. Hughes, the presi- 
dent of DePauw University, now bishop. His 
other son, Eev. M. S. Hughes, is a popular 
minister in Kansas City, Missouri. That 

62 



BEINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

is what can properly be called "wayside 
evangelism," a kind of work that all of us 
can do. 

Present Encouragements. 

There are just as many symphonies to- 
day as Mendelssohn snatched from the skies 
and wove into musical beauties to charm the 
lives of men. There are just as many har- 
monies now as Beethoven dreamed into ex- 
istence and spread upon paper to inspire the 
intellect of the ages. There are just as 
many opportunities to-day rushing down 
upon the twentieth century American, ex- 
tending to him their invitations of honor and 
usefulness, as ever environed Demosthenes 
and Cicero, lifting them from the ranks of the 
ordinary to the highest altitudes of oratorical 
renown. Bring into requisition the faculties 
within, utilize with wisdom the forces with- 
out, then watch with astonishment that mys- 
terious alchemy of human life transform 
them into gold. 

63 



PEESOXAL WORK. 

A Chaix of Influence. 

A poor humble woman whose name has 
been forgotten gave a religions tract to a 
man named Eichard Baxter. He read it and 
it led him to Christ. Years afterward he 
wrote a book entitled "The Call to the Un- 
converted," which was the means of leading 
thousands into the Kingdom of Christ, among 
them Philip Doddridge. Doddridge wrote a 
book called "The Eise and Progress of Ee- 
ligion in the Soul," which was the means of 
bringing tens of thousands to Christ, among 
others the great TVilberforce. AVilliam "Wil- 
berforce wrote a book entitled "A Practical 
View of Christianity," that led multitudes 
into the Kingdom of Christ, among others 
Leigh Eichmond. Eichmond wrote a tract 
entitled "The Dairyman's Daughter," by 
which thousands were led to Christ. Now 
look at that mighty tide of Christian influence 
flowing down through Baxter, Doddridge, 
Wilberforce, and Eichmond, bringing to 
Christ the lives of hundreds of thousands, 
and all started into operation by an humble 

64 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

Christian woman giving a tract to one poor 
sinner. She gave it, hoping and praying that 
it might do good, and God caused that act 
to bring countless multitudes of the human 
race to a life of salvation. 

Zinzendokf. 

Count Zinzendorf, when he was a boy in 
school, organized among his schoolmates a 
little guild that he called l i The Order of the 
Grain of Mustard Seed. ' ' This little seedling 
grew until it developed into a large tree 
called the "Moravian Brotherhood," whose 
branches reached across the sea and dropped 
their life-giving fruit into the laps of nations. 
It was Count Zinzendorf and his Moravian 
followers who taught John Wesley the first 
principles of a spiritual religion, and who 
are to a certain extent responsible for the ex- 
istence of the twelve million Methodists 
whose spiritual influence is to-day contribut- 
ing so largely to the elevation of the world's 
civilization. 

65 



PERSONAL WORK. 

Andeew Cabstegie. 
The first iron works ever established in 
Allegheny, Pennsylvania, were built by Col- 
onel James Anderson, who at that time was 
the richest man in that city. He built a mag- 
nificent home for himself and his family, fur- 
nished it elegantly and placed in it a large 
library of four hundred volumes, which he 
loaned to the working boys of Allegheny, per- 
mitting them to keep the books for only two 
weeks at a time. One of the boys who was 
especially benefited by this library was An- 
drew Carnegie, who was at that time only a 
bobbin boy, working in a cotton mill for a 
dollar and twenty cents a week. His whole 
life was shaped by the books that he read 
from the Anderson library. He then deter- 
mined that if in his future life he should be 
a possessor of surplus wealth it would be de- 
voted to the circulation of free books. This 
accounts for Carnegie pouring out his money 
to-day in a stream of benevolence for the es- 
tablishment of libraries all over the world. 
So Colonel James Anderson wrought wiser 
than he knew. 

66 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

Rev. George Duffield. 

Rev. George Duffield, the eminent preacher 
and writer of the hymn ' ' Stand up, Stand up 
for Jesus, " was once pastor of a Church in 
Galesburg, Illinois. He had in his home a 
Swedish house maid who could hardly speak 
the English language. Through his instru- 
mentality she was led to Christ. Then 
through her influence a large number of her 
Swedish companions were brought to salva- 
tion. The humblest work for the Master is 
invariably rewarded. 

The Stupid Canadian Boy. 

Rev. E. L. Hart was once pastor of a 
Church in Canada. One autumn he con- 
ducted a series of meetings in his church. An 
ignorant, uncouth country boy attended them, 
seldom missing a service. The congregation 
regarded him as a stupid, half-witted boy 
and gave him little attention. The pastor 
treated him kindly and improved every op- 
portunity to give him a polite recognition. 
One night after the dismissal of the audience 

67 



PERSONAL WORK. 

the boy remained in the church. Rev. Hart 
talked to him, found him very penitent, 
prayed with him, and pointed him to Christ. 
A spiritual light shone in his life and stimu- 
lated into action latent mental forces that 
transformed him into a new intellectual be- 
ing. That winter he read a great many books 
on self -improvement. He seemed to be seized 
with a great thirst for knowledge. In a few 
months afterward he matriculated in the 
Guelph Agricultural College, from which he 
graduated with great honors. He is now a 
popular editor of a large weekly agricultural 
paper in Toronto, and a prominent and useful 
member of one of the largest Methodist 
Churches in that city. The gospel of Jesus 
Christ is still the great and only man-saving 
and man-making power among the nations 
of men. 

The Mission of Living Water. 

A Sunday school teacher who taught a 
class in a slum church in a red-light district 
in New York City, while looking for absent 

68 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

scholars went into a home where there was 
a husband and father who was a drunkard 
and an anarchist. Repeated calls brought 
him into the Water Street Mission, where he 
was converted. He was a truckman, and 
from his truck wherever he went day or night 
he was trying to win others for Christ. At 
his request the trustees of the slum church 
permitted him to use its basement for reli- 
gious services during the week. These were 
so successful that he gave up his business, 
and devoted all his time to religious work. 
He opened a mission now known as "The 
Mission of Living Water," in the very saloon 
where he used to drink and carouse. Every 
night for twelve years that mission has been 
open for religious services. Many are the 
evidences of human life converted from sin 
to righteousness. 

A Diamond in Clay. 

Dr. Playfair lived and practiced his pro- 
fession in South Africa. One of his patients 
presented him with a mineralogical curiosity. 

69 



PERSONAL WORK. 

It was a blue stone that had at one time been 
common clay, but had gradually turned to 
stone. It was odd looking and could only be 
valuable as a mineralogical curiosity, was evi- 
dently the thought of the person who pre- 
sented it to the doctor. But one day its owner 
crushed the clay shell and discovered that 
it contained a valuable diamond. Beneath 
this human clay is a diamond — valuable, pre- 
cious, and durable as eternity — if the life can 
be so crushed by repentance that the bright 
light of Christ can, through the channels of 
faith, shine down through the soul and make 
the diamond discoverable. 

Cellar Dirt. 

Did you ever watch the digging of a cellar 
in the summer time ? Just in a few days after 
the dirt is thrown out it is covered with 
plants of various kinds. A scientist counted 
five hundred seeds in a quart cup full of such 
dirt, seeds only waiting for the sunshine and 
air to make them jump into leaf and stem 
and fruit. Under the bright sunshine of the 

70 



BBINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

gospelizing influences of Jesus Christ, tal- 
ents and gifts and powers spring up in human 
life that you never dreamed were there. The 
normal development of a human life is always 
under the bright sunlight of the sunshine of 
salvation. 

Timothy. 

Paul furnished us a splendid example of 
personal work when he went to Lystra in 
Asia Minor and led Timothy to Christ. This 
young man, whose mother, Eunice, and grand- 
mother, Lois, had thoroughly taught him in 
the Scriptures, was easily led from Judaism 
to Christianity. His mother was a Jewess and 
his father a Gentile. Thus an ancestry and a 
training had been given him that thoroughly 
qualified him to adapt himself as a Christian 
worker to the Jewish as well as to the Gentile 
nations of the earth. 

He became a great evangelist, the travel- 
ing companion and valuable co-laborer of the 
Great Apostle to the Gentiles. He was for 
many years Bishop of Ephesus. The last 

71 



PERSONAL WORK. 

recorded letter that Paul wrote before his 
martyrdom was written to Timothy. Paul 
no doubt realized to some extent the great 
influence he had started into operation for 
the Master's Kingdom when he won Timothy 
for Christ. 

Philip axd the Euxuch. 

When Philip ran and climbed up into that 
royal chariot and sat down by the Ethiopian 
Eunuch and explained to him the fifty-third 
chapter of Isaiah, he won him for Christ. 
Then baptizing him he sent him rejoicing 
down to his African home to tell others the 
glad tidings of salvation. This is a Scrip- 
tural precedent of personal work worthy of 
imitation. 

Fishees of Men. 

TThen Jesus was walking by the sea of 
Galilee, He called four fishermen to be His 
disciples — Andrew, Peter, James, and John. 
He told them that they would no longer be 
catchers of fish, but fishers of men. Then for 

72 



BEINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

more than three years they were the con- 
stant recipients of His competent instruction, 
which qualified them to he skilled laborers 
for the Master. So after His ascension to 
the Father and the Holy Spirit's descension 
to men, they cast the gospel net into the sea 
of human life and caught a multitude of men 
from every nation under heaven. One of the 
greatest honors ever conferred upon man is 
the privilege of winning men from sin to 
righteousness. 

Elijah and Elisha. 

Elijah went down into the Jordan valley 
where Elisha was plowing twelve yoke of 
oxen and, throwing his mantle around him, 
called him from his secular occupation to 
another work exclusively in the service of Je- 
hovah. So we are also out in this busy world 
of commerce, industry, and agriculture to 
throw our mantles of Christian influence 
around the lives of those with whom we come 
in contact and lead them into the service of 
the Lord, not that they are to forsake their 

73 



PERSONAL WORK. 

secular occupations, but to consecrate them 
with their lives to the service of our 
Christ. 

Apollos. 

When Aquila and his wife Priscilla did 
that piece of personal work for Christ at 
Ephesus by leading the eloquent Apollos into 
a more perfect knowledge of the gospel, they 
did much for the advancement of the Mas- 
ter's Kingdom. That brainy, Alexandrian 
Jew, consecrating his eloquence to Christ, be- 
came a mighty evangelist, and the gospel seed 
that Paul had previously planted in the hearts 
of men he watered by the influence of his 
preaching until a harvest was produced by 
the first century Church that made the very 
angels rejoice. In school and college, law 
office and marts of trade can be found al- 
most every day silver-tongued orators who 
if won for Christ would become flaming evan- 
gels and possibly change the religious com- 
plexion of a continent, 

74 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

John Wanamaker. 
John Wanamaker said that at the begin- 
ning of his career he went to the city a big, 
inexperienced, irreligious country boy. A 
salesman invited him to go with him to 
church. He accepted the invitation. The old 
minister who conducted the meeting per- 
mitted the laymen present to publicly testify 
to the merits of the Christian religion. An 
old man present said that he could not stay 
long in this world and that he felt sure that 
religion would help him die. This testimony 
did not impress young Wanamaker very 
much, as he was not thinking as much about 
dying as about living. Then a young busi- 
ness man arose in the meeting and said that 
he had been a Christian for only two years, 
but in that length of time he had discovered 
that religion had made him a better business 
man — that he had met with greater financial 
success, had made more money, and had made 
it easier by operating his business accord- 
ing to the rules of Christianity than he did 

75 



PERSONAL WORK 

in other days when he did not regard the 
teachings of Christ. This testimony made a 
deep impression on Wanamaker's mind, and 
right then and there he decided to become a 
Christian. After the meeting was dismissed 
and the congregation had left the church he 
remained. No one was left but the old min- 
ister and the janitor. "I went up to the 
minister," he said, "and gave him my hand 
and at the same time I gave God my heart. 
I then told the minister that I had decided 
for Christ. He spoke to me so kindly and 
said, ' God bless you, my boy. ' That was all of 
it. I have been a Christian ever since." 
Little did that young business man think 
when he testified in that meeting for Christ 
that he was by that testimony launching on 
the sea of human life a great Christian 
merchant, financier, statesman, millionaire, 
lay-evangelizer, philanthropist, and one who 
was to be the superintendent of one of the 
largest Sunday schools in America. 



76 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

Rudyabd Kipling. 

When Rudyard Kipling wrote the " Re- 
cessional," one of his finest poems and also 
one of the finest classics in the English lan- 
guage, his pen struck the highest literary 
note of his life. He did not appreciate its 
value and threw it into the waste basket. 
This great poem was rescued by accident. 
Kipling did not realize that he had written a 
classic. Having done the best work of his 
life he thought it was a failure. Mistaken 
judgment is one of the common imperfections 
of the human race. Some of the greatest 
characters have been won for the Church of 
God when the soul winner believed that the 
work he performed to win them was very 
commonplace or actually a failure. Every 
day can be as full of successes as its hours 
are full of opportunities. 

The Revised Veksiok. 
Two million and a half copies of the Re- 
vised Version of the New Testament were 
either bought or ordered by English speak- 

77 



PEESONAL WORK. 

ing people within forty-eight hours after it 
was declared ready for delivery. And the 
whole Eevised New Testament was cabled 
across the ocean and appeared complete the 
next day in the Chicago Tribune. This is a 
miracle of science. The improved methods 
of communication and transportation have 
so facilitated the means for the dissemina- 
tion of God's truth that the rapid salvation 
of multiutdes is made a glorious possibility. 

Photogeaphy. 

There is a new invention that photog- 
raphy is now utilizing in the development of 
pictures. Its chief feature is a process that 
demonstrates the fact that heat accelerates 
chemical action and that a hot developing 
fluid invariably makes a better and stronger 
negative. This principle is also true in the 
chemistry of human life. Selfishness, sin, 
and evil inclinations are burnt out of the 
life by the hot developer of consecrated ac- 
tion. As the purest ore comes from the hot- 
test furnace, so the purest lives are developed 

78 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

in the hottest fires of enthusiastic service. 
Activity, work, and Christian aggressiveness 
are the alchemists under the influence of the 
Holy Spirit by which the dross of the soul is 
etherealized and the human life spiritualized 
and the baser metal of our lower nature 
transmuted into pure gold. Obedient action 
helps us to comply with the conditions of 
spiritual reception. 

Influence of Moody 's Sekmon. 

In 1897 Mr. Moody conducted a meeting 
in Boston. At the close of one of his meet- 
ings at Tremont Temple, a gentleman in mid- 
dle life came up to him and said: "Mr. 
Moody, you do not know me, but I feel as if 
I must speak to- you as I leave for California 
to-night, and we will probably never meet 
each other again in this world. More than 
twenty years ago you were preaching in 
London, conducting^ a revival meeting. I, in 
company with two other rough young men 
went into the church where you were preach- 
ing and sat down in the congregation. We 

79 



PERSONAL WORK. 

were moral lepers, for we had gone a long 
distance into various kinds of sin. Through 
your words that night the Spirit of God 
touched our hearts. When you dismissed the 
congregation we did not wait to speak to 
you, but walked out on the sidewalk, quietly 
shook hands with one another, and said that 
from that night on we would lead a new life. 
Some time ago one of the three died in 
Egypt, at the head of his regiment, an ear- 
nest Christian worker. The second is now an 
heroic missionary in Africa, winning the peo- 
ple of the Dark Continent from paganism to 
Christ. I am the third, living in California, 
engaged in a Christian business and living 
exclusively for Christ." Little did Mr. 
Moody know when he preached that sermon 
in London that night what an immense con- 
tribution he was making toward the advance- 
ment of the Master's Kingdom. 

The Shattered Violin. 

A distinguished musician ordered a man- 
ufacturer of violins to make for him the very 

80 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

best instrument possible. He told him to 
use the best material, to take all the time he 
needed, and to utilize his most efficient skill 
in its construction. At last the violin was 
completed and the manufacturer sent for the 
musician to come and give it a trial. But 
when he came and drew the bow across the 
strings his face became clouded, and lift- 
ing it up he brought it down upon the counter 
and smashed it to pieces. Then handing the 
price to the manufacturer he left the shop. 
But the manufacturer was not satisfied with 
mere pay. His reputation was at stake. So 
gathering up the fragments he skillfully 
put them together again. After he had suc- 
ceeded in remodeling the instrument out of 
the pieces, he sent once more for the musi- 
cian. This time as he drew the bow across 
the strings, the frown of disapproval did not 
appear, and he told the manufacturer that 
at last he had succeeded in making the very 
kind of an instrument he had so long de- 
sired. "Now what is your price?" he in- 
quired. "Nothing at all," was the reply. 

81 



PERSONAL WORK. 

"It is the same violin yon smashed to pieces 
some time ago. I pnt the fragments together 
and out of them yon have been able to pro- 
duce this beautiful music." God can take 
the fragments of a shattered life and so put 
them together by His omnipotent graces 
that under the touch of the Holy Spirit there 
will go forth music good enough for earth 
and sweet enough for heaven. the life-re- 
forming and heart-regenerating powers of 
the Holy Spirit ! 

John Newton. 

God does not look at man as we do. "We 
see his imperfections, but God sees his pos- 
sibilities. Look at that poor, wretched 
sailor. Drunken, filthy, impure. Only a 
drunken sailor. Nobody wanted him, nobody 
loved him, nobody cared for him; but God 
looked at him and loved him and saved him. 
His name was John Newton; John Newton, 
the poet, the preacher, the theologian, a man 
of such phenomenal magnetic force and 
power that when he was saved he was in- 

82 



BBINGING MEN TO CHEIST. 

strumental in attracting a multitude of other 
men to Christ. 

John Bunyan. 

Look at that other wicked man, that 
swearing tinker. He was so blasphemous 
and profane that he said himself that when 
he began to swear his neighbors began to 
shudder. Nobody wanted him, nobody loved 
him, and nobody cared for him; but God 
looked at him and loved him and saved him. 
His name was John Bunyan, the immortal 
dreamer. Men would never have looked for 
the "Pilgrim's Progress " in this foul- 
mouthed, blasphemous man. 

Geoege Whitefield. 
Look at that other man, a saloonkeeper, 
a dispenser of strong drink to his fellow- 
men while working for his brother in a 
saloon in Gloucester, England. God looked 
at him and loved him and saved him, and 
his name is George Whitefield, the great 
preacher, the matchless orator, and the suc- 
cessful winner of men. 

83 



PERSONAL WORK. 

D. L. Moody. 

Look at that other man selling boots and 
shoes in a shoe store in Boston. He was so 
common that men called him mediocre. God 
looked at him and loved him and saved him, 
and his name was D. L. Moodv. When he 
applied for membership in a Congregational 
Church they hestitated to receive him, and 
put him on trial for twelve months. But 
Moody became the greastest evangelist of 
the nineteenth century ; and placing one hand 
on America and the other on Great Britain 
he moved them towards the cross. 

St. Paul. 

Look at that other man breathing out 
threatenings, dangers, and death against the 
infant Church. He tied with cords, dragged 
to prison, and stoned to death the innocent 
followers of the Christ. The Christians 
feared him, fled from him, and believed him to 
be an agent of the devil. But God looked at 
him and loved him and saved him, and his 
name was Paul, the preacher, the writer, the 

84 



BBINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

missionary, and the Great Apostle to the 
Gentiles, and the greatest evangelizer that 
the world has ever known. He stepped forth 
into the arena of Christian combat, and so 
antagonized the forces of sin that before the 
termination of the third century the broad 
Eoman Empire had practically surrendered 
to the power of the gospel of the cross. 
Thank God for the man-reforming powers 
of the gospel of Jesus Christ! 

The Volcanic Flower. 

Frederick Humbolt, the eminent natural- 
ist, claimed that he plucked a flower from the 
very verge of the crater of the volcano Vesu- 
vius. Then carrying it carefully away with 
him he transplanted it into a garden, where 
it grew, flourished, and became a thing of 
beauty, sending forth its fragrance on the 
passing breeze. Many a personal worker 
under the influence of the Holy Spirit has 
rescued from the very verge of perdition 
human lives and has transplanted them into 
the Kingdom of God, where they grew, flour- 

85 



PEESONAL WOKK. 

ished, and developed into moral beauties, 
sending forth the fragrance of a Christian 
influence to make better the world of men. 

The Christian's Dkeam. 

It is said that once a nominal Christian 
had a very strange dream that made such a 
deep impression upon his mind that he im- 
mediately changed his whole life from spirit- 
ual lethargy to Christian activity. In his 
dream he ascended a high ladder until he was 
at the gate of heaven, where he knocked and 
requested admission. A voice from the in- 
side inquired, "Who is with you?" "No 
one," was the answer. "I am all alone.' ' 
"Then we can not admit you," was the re- 
ply, "for we have special instructions never 
to open this gate to a single individual." 
Sad, crestfallen, and disappointed he de- 
scended to earth and awoke to discover that 
it was only a dream. But he felt that the 
dream had a meaning that demanded an in- 
terpretation. After a season of prayerful 
thought, he decided that the chief lesson that 

86 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

he was to learn from the dream was that he 
could not go to heaven unless he took some 
one else with him. Then stimulated by this 
thought he went to work to win souls for 
Christ. He won a person each month for 
twelve months. So one soul a month or 
twelve souls a year is the motto of the man 
who was pushed into the arena of personal 
work by the influence of a dream. 

The Insurance Man. 

During the time that Dr. J. Wilbur Chap- 
man was holding his evangelistic meetings 
in a Western city, the president of a large 
insurance company one evening called his 
seventy-six employees together and said to 
them: "I am your employer. I am also a 
Christian and a friend to every one of you 
and am deeply interested in your welfare. 
If any of you are not right with God I hope 
that you will give this matter your earnest 
consideration. ' ' It is said that from that 
day on there was a new spirit manifested 
among the employees, a spirit of kindness, 

87 



PERSONAL WORK. 

politeness, and co-operation that had not 
previously existed. In less than two months 
the entire force was Christian. Each one had 
professed religion and had united with some 
Church. The power that a Christian em- 
ployer has over the un-Christian employee 
to induce him to lead a better life is indeed 
marvelous and almost irresistible. 

Bishop Tucker. 

Twenty-five years ago a young artist was 
painting a picture that he hoped would bring 
him both fortune and fame. The subject was 
a woman out in the cold one wild winter night 
shivering, hungry, and thinly clad, holding 
in her arms a pitiful babe. The houses on 
both sides had closed their doors against her 
and she was compelled to stay on the streets 
in the blinding snow. The name of the pic- 
ture was ' ' Homeless. ' ' As he worked on and 
on the spirit of the picture grew on him more 
and more until, laying down his brush, he 
said: "This is real. Why do I not do some- 
thing for these poor, wandering street suf- 

88 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

ferers?" Then gazing at the picture long 
and earnestly, he arose with a determination 
that he put into execution. He said, "I will 
give my life to seek and save these lost and 
destitute ones for whom the world does not 
care." He was soon performing his mission 
to the outcasts. Then he prepared himself 
for the Christian ministry. Afterwards 
when an opportunity was offered he went as 
a missionary to Africa. This was the man 
who was afterwards famous for his Chris- 
tian statesmanship and his power to lift up 
fallen men to lives of righteousness. Bishop 
Tucker, of Uganda, is the name of this man. 
Look if you please upon the real picture of 
human life, upon those whose bodies are suf- 
fering with pain and whose souls are black 
with sin, and do something for the salvation 
of a perishing world. 

Raphael. 

When some one inquired of Raphael how 
he managed to produce such beautiful paint- 
ings, he replied, "I dream dreams and see 

89 



PERSONAL WORK. 

visions, and then I take my brush and throw 
the dream or the vision in a painting upon 
the material canvas." He had many eon- 
temporaries whose dreams were as beautiful 
and whose visions were as grand as those of 
the famous Raphael, but who never improved 
the opportunity of placing them in immortal 
beauties upon the material canvas. If our 
dreams and visions that we so frequently 
entertain for the moral elevation of the hu- 
man race were wisely put into execution, 
were thrown with the brush of personal work 
upon the canvas of human life, that Scrip- 
tural prophecy would soon have a fulfillment 
that declares the time is coming "when right- 
eousness will cover the earth as waters cover 
the sea." 

The Red-Headed Street Arab. 

A Sunday school convention was in ses- 
sion in a Western city. A new York mer- 
chant, who was a Sunday school teacher, was 
on the program for an address. During his 
speech he said : One bright Sunday morning I 

90 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

went out to find recruits for my Sunday 
school class. At a street corner I met a boy 
without hat, coat, or shoes. His hair was 
fiery red, and looked as if it had never been 
combed. I asked him if he would come to 
Sunday school. "No sir," was his sharp 
reply. "You ought to go to Sunday school," 
I said very kindly. "What for?" he said. 
"We teach boys to be good." "But I do n't 
want to be good." "What, do n't want to be 
good ? Why ? " " Because I am too hungry. ' ' 
"Haven't you had any breakfast yet?" 
"No, sir. " " Where do you live ? " "Up the 
alley there with aunty. But she is sick, too." 
"Would you like to eat some gingerbread 
if I should get it for you?" "Yes sir, and 
be glad to get to." I went to a lunch stand 
and bought him a good lunch. He ate it with 
an appetite that showed me that he was 
ravenously hungry. When he had finished 
his lunch I said: "Now, will you come to 
Sunday school next Sunday?" "Yes sir, 
I will," he said. "I will just go anywhere 
with you. ' ' He was as good as his word for 

91 



PERSONAL WORK. 

the next Sunday he was there. Then he dis- 
covered his mistake about Sunday schools. 
He thought that the Sunday school was a 
place where boys had to hold out their hands 
and have them slapped with rulers, have 
their ears pinched, their hair pulled, and their 
jaws boxed in order to make them good. But 
he found everything so different. He was 
placed in the hands of a pleasant young lady, 
who treated him so kindlv, and who did not 
seem to notice his ignorance or his shabby 
clothes. The boy was surprised. He fell in 
love with the Sunday school and became a 
regular attendant. He told all the boys of 
his acquaintance about the school and per- 
suaded them to attend. About two years 
after his matriculation in our school a lot 
of boys were shipped from New York out 
West to be distributed among the farmers. 
Among them was my red-haired boy. I 
used to hear from him, and that he was 
doing well, but I have-not heard from him for 
a number of years. However, I feel that 
wherever he is, if he is alive, he is getting 

92 



BBINGING MEN TO CHBIST. 

along all right. He then closed his address 
by emphasizing the importance of Sunday 
schools and churches, especially in large 
cities, paying more attention to the neglected 
children. Having finished his address he sat 
down. In a few moments a tall, good-look- 
ing gentleman with red hair stood up in the 
congregation and said: "Ladies and gentle- 
men, I am the red-haired beggar-boy who ate 
that man's gingerbread twenty-five years 
ago. I have lived in the West twenty-three 
years. Fortune has come my way. I have 
enjoyed prosperity and I am to-day a rich 
man. Not far from this church I own five 
hundred acres of as rich land as the sun 
shines on. My horses and carriage are at the 
door, and when this meeting adjourns I shall 
be happy to drive my old friend to my home, 
where he will be welcome to stay as long as 
he pleases. He can have the right-of-way out 
there. I am still a member of the Sunday 
school. I am the superintendent of a school 
in this town. I owe all that I am in this 
world and all that 1 hope to be in the next 

93 



PERSONAL WORK. 

to what has been taught me in the Sunday 
school." Yes, do not forget that personal 
work for Sunday schools will frequently bear 
fruit a hundred-fold for the Kingdom of God. 

SCRUBOLOGY. 

A Christian lady arose in a speaking 
meeting and said: "Do not accuse me of 
heresy because I am not familiar with theo- 
retical theology. But if you will listen to me 
I will tell you how I won a family for Christ. 
My pastor told me about them and where 
they lived. I went to see them and found 
them miserable, sick, and destitute. The 
wife and mother was sick in bed with a burn- 
ing fever. The husband and father was sit- 
ting near in an old rocking chair, slowly con- 
valescing from a long spell of sickness. 
Four little children were playing about on 
the bare floor of the tumbled-up house. They 
had very little fuel, a small supply of provi- 
sions, and no money. I built a fire, heated 
water, and washed the children. I bathed the 
feverish face of the mother, combed her hair, 

94 



BBINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

made her bed, set the house in order, and 
cooked a meal. Then after they had eaten 
I read a few verses to them from my Bible, 
and knelt down by the sick woman's bed and 
prayed. I visited them daily for several 
weeks and saw that they were provided for 
until they got well. The mother is now able 
to keep her own house. The father has se- 
cured a good position and is receiving wages 
enough to support his family. They all at- 
tend our Sunday school and Church. The 
best of all is that the entire family has been 
brought to Christ. I invariably say that I 
won them not by theology but by scrubology. 
Theoretical theology is all right, but unless 
it develops, into practical usefulness it will 
never do much toward bringing this world to 
Christ. 

A WOKD AT THE WATERING TROUGH. 

A young Methodist circuit rider who lived 
in an Eastern city mounted his horse one 
morning and started out on his circuit for 
the purpose of performing his regular rou- 
tine of religious duties. Before leaving the 

95 



PERSONAL WORK. 

city he rode to ti public watering trough that 
he might water his horse. At the same time a 
strange young man rode up on the opposite 
side for the same purpose. The young minis- 
ter inquired* of the stranger if he was a Chris- 
tian. He replied that he was not. The 
preacher then very kindly said that he ought 
to become one and wished to be permitted 
to recommend to him the Lord Jesus Christ, 
who would be the best friend that he could 
ever have in this world or in that to come. 
The young minister continued: "He will 
stick closer to you than a brother. I urge 
you to make His acquaintance. ' ' This was 
all that passed between them. They then 
separated never to meet again on earth. As 
the young stranger rode away he repeated to 
himself: "The Lord Jesus Christ, the best 
friend that I can ever have in this world or in 
the world to come, and He will stick closer 
to me than a brother." Then he thought 
how he must go about making His acquaint- 
ance. He concluded that he must pray and 
read the Bible. So he began to pray and read 

96 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

ihis Bible and was soon converted. He had 
surely made the Lord's acquaintance. Then 
God called him to preach the gospel. He 
went to a distant field in the far West to 
labor. He was exceedingly successful in win- 
ning souls for Christ, and many hundreds 
were converted under his ministry. Some of 
these converts became preachers and success- 
ful soul winners. This spiritual propagation 
went on rapidly until multitudes were swept 
into the Kingdom of God. He often won- 
dered who the young man was who met him 
at the watering trough years before, and 
who by speaking a few words to him had led 
him to Jesus. Desiring a number of books to 
distribute among the young converts of his 
congregation he ordered a supply from an 
Eastern publishing house. The books came. 
He opened the box that contained them. 
Taking out one and examining it, he dis- 
covered the picture of the author on the 
frontispiece. The face very much resembled 
that of the young man he had "met years be- 
fore at the public watering trough, and who 

97 



PERSONAL WORK 

had been instrumental in his salvation. He 
wrote him a letter and asked him if he had 
ever lived in a certain city in a certain year, 
and then, mentioning the exact day, he asked 
him if he remembered meeting a young man 
at a watering trough and recommending to 
him the Lord Jesus Christ, and urging him to 
make His acquaintance. The return mail 
brought a letter from the author answering 
all the questions in the affirmative. Then 
writing to the author again he told him how 
these words had been instrumental in lead- 
ing him to Christ, and that he had entered 
the ministry, and told him of some of the re- 
sults of his ministerial labors. Consider, if 
you please, the power of one word spoken, 
one act performed, one look bestowed for 
Christ. It is a great privilege to be per- 
mitted to win souls for His Kingdom. The 
word spoken at the watering trough, in the 
church, in the parlor, at the bedside, in the 
busy marts of trade may be the source of a 
river of blessings that will water with joy 
and salvation the lives of multiplied millions. 

98 



BBINGING MEN TO CHKIST. 

The Chicago Fire. 
Fire spreads. In 1871 an old woman 
known as Mother O'Leary was one day milk- 
ing a cow with a lamp on the ground by her 
side. The cow kicked the lamp over, the 
grass ignited, the flames spread, and in less 
than forty-eight hours only two buildings 
were left standing in that part of Chicago. 
Yes, indeed, fire spreads. But no fire can 
spread like the fires of the Holy Spirit. The 
fire burns in your heart, then leaps from your 
lips in words of fire, or flashes from your 
eyes in looks of power or emanates from 
your life in acts permeated by* a spiritual 
force that so impresses the lives of others 
that they are attracted into the Kingdom of 
God. The spiritual fire starting from the 
testimony of a little girl produced a revival 
that swept Wales. May a similar fire start 
from some one's life in the United States 
that will sweep America and spread to Eu- 
rope, Asia, Africa, and to the isles of the 
sea, until the whole planet is in a blaze of sal- 
vation *s glory! 

99 



PERSONAL WORK. 

Ed. Spencer. 
During the time that Mr. Torrey was con- 
ducting his series of revival meetings in Los 
Angeles, California, a very thrilling incident 
occurred. He was preaching about soul win- 
ning and closed his sermon that night by giv- 
ing an account of the rescue of seventeen per- 
sons from a wrecked vessel on Lake Michigan 
by Edward Spencer, a student at Evanston, 
Illinois, in Northwestern University. Years 
ago when the university was young — in fact 
when it was only a country college — two 
farmer boys from Iowa came to the college, 
Will and Ed Spencer. Ed Spencer was a 
famous swimmer. One morning word came 
to the college that there was a vessel wrecked 
on the lake, north of Evanston. The college 
boys in company with the people of the town 
hurried along the shore, trying to find some 
way by which to save the wreckers. When 
they reached the place they discovered that 
the wrecked vessel was the Lady Elgin; and 
planks, spars, and other pieces of wreckage 
were being driven ashore to which men, wo- 

100 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

men, and children were clinging. Edward 
Spencer threw off his coat and superfluous 
clothing, tied a rope around his waist, threw 
one end of the rope to his comrades on the 
shore, jumped into the breakers, and swam 
out to the rescue. He soon grasped one who 
was struggling in the water, and his com- 
rades drew him to the shore. Again, again, 
and again he swam out until he had brought 
ten safe to the shore. He then seemed en- 
tirely exhausted. His school chums had built 
a fire out of the logs on the shore and he tot- 
tered to it and stood there a while trying to 
get warmth into his cold body. As he stood 
there looking out over the lake he saw others 
struggling in the water. He said, "Boys, I 
am going in again. " "0 no, Ed," they 
cried; "your strength is all gone. You can 
not swim again. If you do you will only 
throw your life away. It would be suicide. ' ' 
"I will try again, anyway, boys," he shouted, 
as he sprang into the breakers. He swam out 
and caught one poor fellow who was drown- 
ing, and brought him safe to shore. He con- 

101 



PERSONAL WORK. 

tinued Ms work of saving until now lie had 
saved fifteen and his strength seemed to be 
all gone. He once more staggered over to 
the fire and stood there pale and trembling 
and cold. It seemed that the hand of death 
was already upon him. He could scarcely 
stand. Looking out again over the water he 
saw a man's head above the spar and a 
woman's head beside the man's. "Boys," 
shouted Ed, "it is a man trying to save his 
wife and I am going to help him." "0 no, 
Ed," they replied; "you have not the 
strength to reach him." "Yes, but I will 
try," he said, and dashing from the crowd 
he leaped into the lake. Collecting his fast- 
dying strength he swam to the spar and plac- 
ing his hand upon it he guided it over the 
awful breakers to a place where they could 
be rescued. Ed was then pulled through the 
breakers to the shore. Tender hands lifted 
him up and carried him to his room in the 
college. They laid him on his bed and for 
a while he seemed to fall into a deep sleep. 
His brother, Will, then left his bedside and 

102 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

went over to the fire that they had kindled 
in the grate. As he sat there thinking, sud- 
denly he heard a gentle footfall behind him 
and a touch upon his shoulder. Looking 
around he saw that it was his brother Ed, 
who, looking into his face, said, "Will, do 
you think that I did my best?" "You saved 
seventeen. You could not have saved 
another one without dying yourself. Of 
course you did your best," replied his 
brother. "Well, all right then," replied 
Ed. "I was afraid that I had not done my 
best." His brother Will put him back in his 
bed and watched tenderly over him. All that 
night he tossed in a semi-delirium, thinking 
and talking about those he could not save, 
those who had gone down to a watery grave. ' ' 

There are wrecks going down all around 
us. Men, women, and children are going 
down in the breakers of sin. Let every 
Christian go forth to the rescue. God will 
help us and give us strength to bring them 
safely to the shores of salvation. 

When Mr. Torrey finished relating this 

103 



PEESONAL WOEK. 

thrilling incident people were weeping in all 
parts of the large congregation that crowded 
to its utmost capacity the large tabernacle. 
President Baer, of Occidental College, whis- 
pered to Mr. Torrey that Ed Spencer was in 
the congregation. Mr. Torrey then stepped 
to the front of the platform and said that he 
understood that Ed Spencer was at that mo- 
ment in the tabernacle, and if it was true he 
would be glad to have him come to the plat- 
form. In a moment an old man stepped upon 
the platform and stood by Mr. Torrey. It 
was Ed Spencer. The audience sprang to 
their feet and began to applaud and wave 
their handkerchiefs. "When the audience be- 
came quiet Mr. Spencer said: "It was just 
forty-eight years and two months to-day 
since the incident occurred that Mr. Torrey 
related in his sermon. And I would have 
you all to understand that I am a Christian, 
and that my last days are my best days. My 
whole life from the days of my youth has 
been dedicated to- the service of God." Ed 

104 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

Spencer was a hero, indeed. But every one 
who saves a soul from perishing in the 
breakers of sin is a hero or heroine in the 
sight of God. We rejoice because of the 
mighty multitude who to-day belong to the 
life-saving service of heaven. 

The Paealytic. 

Our Savior was preaching in a dwelling 
house in the of city Capernaum. The large 
congregation that assembled to hear His 
burning words of truth filled to its utmost 
capacity the interior of the house, and 
crowded all the exterior space convenient for 
a listener to occupy until ingress or egress 
through door or window seemed an impossi- 
bility. Just at this time four men ap- 
proached the house carrying on a bed a para- 
lyzed friend whom they very much desired 
to take to Jesus, believing that He would 
speak the healing word that would restore 
him to health again. Seeing the immense 
crowd and how utterly impossible it would 

105 



PERSONAL WORK. 

be to get their diseased friend through it to 
the Great Physician, they would not be de- 
feated, but ascending the outside stairway, 
they mounted the roof, tore it up and lowered 
their sick and sinful friend down into the 
presence of Jesus. When Jesus saw their 
faith He healed his diseases, forgave his sins, 
and sent him on his way rejoicing in the 
glorious blessings of physical health and 
spiritual salvation. The paramount duty of 
Christian workers is to take their irreligious 
friends to Christ. Although insurmount- 
able obstacles may seem to intervene between 
the patient and the Physician, between the 
sinner and the Savior, they need not be de- 
feated, for by mounting the stairway of vic- 
tory through faith in Jesus Christ they can 
tear up the roof of obstruction and with the 
strong cords of personal work can lower the 
spiritual paralytic into the persence of our 
Lord, who by speaking the healing, forgiving 
word will send them on their way rejoicing 
in the glorious benedictions of a spiritual sal- 
vation. 

106 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

The Cambbidge Student. 

When John R. Mott visited Cambridge 
University, one of the students told him that 
he had received sixteen invitations to attend 
the evangelistic services, but not until the 
eleventh had he decided to respond and give 
himself to Christ. There are some men if 
we win them at all it will be necessary for 
us to utilize the grace of persistence. But 
triumph and victory invariably crowns the 
persevering efforts of those who work for 
Christ 

The Revival of 1813-1814. 

The great revival of religion which swept 
over the United States in the years 1813-1814, 
started in Princeton University. At that 
time the United States and Great Britain 
were at war with each other. James Madi- 
son, who was President of the United States, 
appointed a day of fasting and prayer. 
Among all the students at Princeton there 
were only four professors of religion. These 
four decided to speak to all the other stu- 

107 



PERSONAL WORK. 

dents about Christ. They put this resolu- 
tion into execution. Their prayers and per- 
sonal work bore fruit, and a revival began in 
the university that spread throughout New 
Jersey. Then extending to other States it 
soon swept over the whole country, bringing 
a great multitude into the Kingdom of God. 
Personal work and prayer are two great 
forces that Christians can efficiently utilize 
in the world's evangelization. 

The Commercial Traveler. 

A commercial traveler reports that in 
traveling six thousand miles he had received 
six invitations to drink in a saloon and one 
invitation to go to church. This is doubtless 
a true statement. I do not believe that his 
case is an exceptional one, for as a rule in the 
United States a commercial traveler re- 
ceives six invitations to enter a saloon to one 
invitation to enter a church. But the Gideon 
movement and the temperance reform will 
reverse this order during the next decade, 
and the conditions will be so thoroughly 

108 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

changed that in traveling six thousand miles 
the commercial traveler will receive six in- 
vitations to go to church and no invitation 
to take a drink. 

The Importuned Sinner. 

An irreligious man had often been urged 
by his Christian friends to seek Christ and 
be saved from his sins. But as often as he 
was importuned he exhibited his displeasure 
to those who requested him to make such a 
movement. His friends were in earnest and 
would not leave him alone. At last yield- 
ing to their persuasions he gave himself to 
Christ. He afterwards said to those who 
almost forced him to become a Christian: 
"God bless you in your perseverance in my 
case. If you had not been so persistent I 
might hav£ been lost." Let us not be dis- 
couraged in our efforts to bring men to a 
Christian life. We should not only impor- 
tune Christ to save the soul, but also the soul 
to come to Christ. 

109 



PERSONAL WORK. 

The Letter She Wrote. 
One Sunday a preacher urged his congre- 
gation to do personal work. He said that 
every member of the Church could speak a 
word to some one who is not a Christian and 
invite that one to Christ before the next Sab- 
bath. After he had dismissed his congrega- 
tion a lady member of his Church came to 
him and said : "I am so constitutionally timid 
that I fear it will be impossible for me to 
comply with your request. It is a difficult 
matter for me to speak to people about re- 
ligion.' ' "Well," replied the preacher, "if 
you can not speak to sinners, write them a 
letter. Write a letter to some unconverted 
friend and invite her to Christ." After she 
had returned home from church she went to 
her room and spent some time in thinking 
and praying. She owed a letter to a young 
lady friend who was not a Christian and 
who was visiting in a Western city. She 
wrote her a letter. Her friend was greatly 
surprised and deeply impressed at the 
kindly, affectionate, but urgently earnest 

110 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

manner in which her old acquaintance in- 
sisted on her accepting Christ and leading a 
Christian life. It seemed to be irresistible 
and she surrendered. Amid the ecstatic joys 
of a newly converted life she wrote a letter 
to her gentleman friend, who as he read in 
her letter her Christian experience, was per- 
suaded to give himself to Christ and conse- 
crated his life to the service to God. He 
afterwards because a minister of the gospel, 
and the one whose letter won him from sin to 
righteousness became his wife. As life com- 
panions in this holy work they garnered 
many sheaves for the Master. 0, what a 
harvest was produced by one letter written 
by a lady who thought that she was too con- 
stitutionally timid to speak to the irreligious 
about salvation! The Bible says that " those 
who turn many to righteousness will shine 
as stars in the firmament forever and for- 
ever. ' 9 

Armageddon. 

We are told in the Bible that the last great 
battle that will ever be fought on this earth 

111 



PERSONAL WORK. 

between sin and righteousness will be the 
battle of Armageddon. This will be the final 
conflict. This will be earth's last battle. At 
this time wrong will be defeated and right will 
win the victory. We are not told about the 
weapons that will be employed in winning the 
victory and defeating the foe. But un- 
doubtedly the pencil, the pen, and the type- 
writer will be some of the instruments util- 
ized in driving the armies of darkness from 
our world and giving universal dissemination 
to the soul-saving light of the gospel of Jesus 
Christ. Gospelized letters are to be some 
of the utilized agents in the redemption of 
the world from sin. 

Thomas Scott. 

Dr. John Newton once preached a sermon 
in a small village whose inhabitants were 
noted for their religious indifference. Only 
a small congregation assembled to hear him 
preach. One who helped to constitute the 
little audience was Thomas Scott, a young 
man whose careless and indolent habits had 

112 



BBINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

rendered him unpopular in the village. Dr. 
Newton's sermon led him to Christ. All the 
influences of Scott's Commentaries can be 
traced to that sermon. How little leaven 
leavens the whole lump ! 

Amos Sutton. 

Many years ago a poor seamstress per- 
suaded a little boy to go to Sunday school. 
He was converted and became an earnest 
Christian worker. In the years of his man- 
hood he became a minister of the gospel. 
Then afterward he went as a missionary to 
India. By his influence the Baptist mission 
among the Telugus was begun. Connected 
with that mission to-day are thirty thousand 
converts. That little boy was Amos Sutton. 
What a great work that poor seamstress did 
when she persuaded him to attend the Sun- 
day school! 

The Smallpox Epidemic. 

Personal work is so necessary in the sal- 
vation of lost men that it is high time the 

113 



PERSONAL WORK. 

Church is recognizing its value. In the year 
1869 an epidemic of smallpox threatened New 
York City. The Board of Health attempted 
to prevent it by general vaccination. Eighty 
agents were employed to visit every family 
and every house in the city. In one month 
the work was accomplished and the epidemic 
was averted. The epidemic of sin threatens 
the destruction of the world. Christ is the 
remedy. He is the panacea for all sin. It 
is the duty of the Christian people to take 
the remedy to the whole world. ' ' Go ye into 
all the world and preach the gospel to every 
creature' ' is the language of our Lord. A 
properly organized and wisely systematized 
method of personal work can consummate the 
undertaking in less time than we can imagine. 

Peteb Apple. 

Peter Apple, a raw recruit during the 
Civil War, was in a battle down South. A 
volley of shot from the enemy made his regi- 
ment fall back in retreat. But their rapid 
retreat did not stop the onward march of 

114 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

the new soldier, who continued to advance 
until he reached the enemy's guns, and seiz- 
ing the gunner by the collar dragged him 
back with him to his own lines. He said: 
"Boys, why didn't you all come on? Each 
fellow might have got one. ' * While his reck- 
less bravery is not always to be commended 
by military tactics, still it is a good policy for 
the militant Church of Jesus Christ to never 
retreat, but to continue to advance until each 
Christian gets one for the Master's King- 
dom, regardless of the volley of death pour- 
ing into our ranks from the guns of Satan 
and sin. Let each one win another soul for 
Christ. 

Geneeal Eobekt E. Lee. 

Once General Robert E. Lee visited a pop- 
ular watering place. When Sunday arrived 
he was very sorry to learn that there were 
to be no religious services at any place in 
the whole town. But when the Sunday morn- 
ing had nearly passed he was told that a 
Methodist preacher had come to the place 

115 



PERSONAL WORK. 

and would preach at three o 'clock that after- 
noon in the dance hall. Although General 
Lee was a member of the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church he went out in the town among 
the people, walking up and down the streets, 
and wherever he saw a person he would in- 
vite him to the preaching service. He would 
say: "There will be preaching in the dance 
hall this afternoon at three o'clock. Be sure 
and come." The result was that a large con- 
gregation assembled at the appointed hour 
and listened to a well delivered and deeply 
spiritual sermon. Large congregations are 
sometimes produced by the invitations of the 
laity as much as by the drawing power of the 
clergy. A church is as frequently filled by 
the inviting power of the pew as the preach- 
ing power of the pulpit. 

Mrs. Grover Cleveland. 

In one of the large department stores 
of Washington City a few years ago a young 
lady clerk waited on a lady customer who 
had attached to her coat a beautiful bunch 

116 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

of violets. The clerk naturally spoke about 
their beauty and fragrance. "Have you 
never seen the violets in the park?" inquired 
the customer. "There are so many of them 
there, and they are so beautiful. ' ' " No, ' ' re- 
plied the clerk, "when I am done at the store 
I am so tired that I just have to stay at 
home." "What do you do on Sundays?" 
asked the customer. "Stay at home and 
rest," replied the girl. "I will give you this 
bunch of flowers," said the lady. "Then I 
will bring my carriage and take you driving 
next Saturday afternoon. "Will you go?" 
"I would be glad to go, but Saturday 
afternoon is our busiest time of the week." 
"If you will go I will see the proprietor 
and arrange with him for you to have a 
vacation Saturday afternoon." "0, thank 
you," said the clerk, "but I am afraid 
that you can not make the arrangements." 
The proprietor was seen, the arrangements 
were made, and the drive was taken. 
0, how it was enjoyed by the poor, tired 
girl! The good rich lady often took the 

117 



PERSONAL WORK 

girl driving. She encouraged her to at- 
tend church, and the clerk girl soon developed 
into a beautiful Christian character. That 
kind, wealthy lady who was the clerk girl's 
benefactress was none other than Mrs. 
Grover Cleveland, whose husband at that 
time was President of the United States. 

The Methodist Bishop. 

A Methodist bishop once related in one of 
his sermons a very beautiful incident. An 
old Methodist class leader in New York State 
many years ago opened his class-meeting, 
and looking over the little congregation dis- 
covered that one boy was absent. He laid 
down his limn book, took up his hat, and 
with a trembling voice said, "Brethren, 
sing and pray while I go and find that lost 
lamb." He soon returned, his face beam- 
ing with joy, leading the absent boy by the 
hand. That lost lamb, that absent boy, be- 
came the Methodist bishop who related the 
incident. The bright-faced boys in the Sun- 
day school, in the church, on the street, in the 

118 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

school-room, and all around us are to be 
the ecclesiastical, political, and commercial 
great men in the rapidly approaching future. 
Their greatness and usefulness depends to 
a very great extent on the way that we dis- 
charge to them, for them, and around them 
the duties enjoined by the religion of Jesus 
Christ. The influence of our lives every day 
affects not only our own characters and desti- 
nies, but the characters and destinies of those 
who see us live. 

The Cyprus Miners. 

After a season of fasting and prayer the 
Holy Ghost came down in mighty power on 
the Church at Antioch. Paul and Barnabas 
were suggested as the proper persons to im- 
mediately enter on a missionary campaign. 
Good men in the Church laid their hands 
upon them and gave them their formal 
ordination to foreign missionary work. 
The first place they went when they started 
on their missionary tour was to the cop- 
per mines, furnaces, and smelting works 

119 



PERSONAL WORK. 

of Cyprus, where they preached to the 
miners, the mill hands, and the working 
forces that lived on this, the largest island 
in the Mediterranean Sea, The twentieth 
century Church must not forget its mission 
to the laboring classes of the world. The peo- 
ple in our world who work are largely in the 
majority. But the poor majority and the 
rich minority are entitled to have preached 
to them the glorious gospel of Christ. Let 
us heed the precedent furnished us by the 
first Christian missionaries. 

The Cabpexter. 

A Christian man who was a carpenter by 
occupation moved to a town where he had 
never lived before. He united with the 
Church by letter and went to work in great 
earnestness to save the people. In less than 
ten weeks he had led more than a hundred 
souls to Christ. Each one of these new con- 
verts selected membership in the same 
Church to which their Christian worker be- 
longed. The extent to which Church workers 

120 



BRINGING MEN TO CHEIST. 

can build up their Church and extend the 
boundaries of the Kingdom of God is almost 
without limitation. 

The Great m the Small. 

A prominent characteristic of wisdom is 
to see the great in the small. What is more 
insignificant in the estimation of man than 
the rising steam of boiling water lifting the 
lid of a teakettle? Yet in that trivial mo- 
tion the inventive mind of Eobert Fulton be- 
held the germ power of ocean steamers, rail- 
way trains, factories, and many other me- 
chanical, commercial, and industrial expedi- 
ents for the advancement of the civilization 
of man. Intelligent development enlarges the 
small into the great, By the law of develop- 
ment sparks flame into conflagrations, foun- 
tains flow into streams, and the invisible mi- 
nutia into the dazzling grandeur of the mag- 
nificent. The germ seeds that originated 
many a world-renowned reform were dropped 
in silence, nurtured in secret, watered by the 
dews of midnight when but a few human 

121 



PERSONAL WORK. 

eyes were present to behold, but after months 
and years had marched their circuits they 
leaped into life in a million hearts and a mil- 
lion lives, and a golden harvest of ripening 
grain waved over the breadth of a continent. 

Character Building. 

The greatest work that God ever gave 
man to do was to build a character for 
heaven. The architect builds for a century, 
but we build for eternity. When the artist 
picks up his brush and his bucket and throws 
the colors on the canvas, he paints for a gen- 
eration; but when we pick up the brush of 
Christian work and throw the influence of 
consecrated activities on the canvas of hu- 
man life, we paint forever. The sculptor 
picks up his chisel and mallet and cuts the 
image from the marble and the ravages of 
time soon crumble it to the dust; but when 
with the chisel and the mallet of every-day 
living we carve the likeness of Christ in our 
lives it will endure on and on, forever and 
forever. One thousand men were employed 

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BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

in Egypt to construct a pyramid tomb for 
a dead king. Let us awaken to the realiza- 
tion that we are engaged in a far nobler work 
in the construction of temples for the living 
God. I honestly believe that the poorest pub- 
lic schoolhouse in America or the humblest 
Christian church in all our land, with no 
otAer ornament to beautify its rough exterior 
than the morning dewdrop glittering in the 
golden beams of the rising sun, is a far no- 
bler spectacle in the sight of God than the 
loftiest European cathedral that has ever 
lifted its magnificant spires in the lights and 
shadows of a thousand years. The public 
school and the Christian church are the ele- 
vating factors in our American civilization. 
They lift our people to the high intellectual 
and spiritual plane that God designed for 
their occupancy. 

The Power of Song. 

The psalmist tells us to serve the Lord 
with gladness and to come before His pres- 
ence with singing. I suppose that the reason 

123 



PERSONAL WORK. 

he exhorts us to sing is because there is such 
a mighty power in Christian song to draw 
a human life into the regions of right. There 
are a thousand different kinds of religion in 
this world, but the Christian religion is the 
only one that sings. It has girdled the 
earth with its sermons and songs. The 
gospel in song has been the means of saving 
a multitude of immortals for the Kingdom of 
God. In contemplation of this truth an emi- 
nent divine exclaimed, "0, the theology of 
hymnology!" Many a theological doctrine 
has been powerfully expressed in the lan- 
guage of Christian song. By this combina- 
tion of harmony and truth, under the influ- 
ence of the Holy Spirit, the great faculties 
of the human soul have been reached and led 
from the darkness of sin into the marvelous 
light of righteousness. 

Song Saved a Young Man. 

A young man resisted the invitations of 
his pastor's sermon, his mother's prayers, 
and the earnest pleadings of Christian 

124 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

friends to lead a religious life and continued 
a life of sin. He had been absent from his 
home town for several months. While re- 
turning, aboard a railroad train, he fortu- 
nately occupied a car with a happy band of 
Epworth Leaguers, who were returning from 
a League conference. They were singing, and 
sang one gospel song after another. The im- 
penitent young man sat there and listened. 
With the other passengers he heard them 
sing one hymn after another. At last under 
the powerful harmony and spiritual force of 
a sacred song the great deep of his soul was 
broken up. He wept, repented, looked to 
Jesus, and was gloriously converted right 
there on the train. What mother, pastor, 
and the pleadings of Christian friends had 
failed to do was accomplished by Christian 
song. When the train stopped at the sta- 
tion of his home town he first walked straight 
to his pastor's study. He told how he had 
been converted on the train, under the in- 
fluence of a song sung by a band of Ep- 
worthians. Arrangements were made for his 

125 



PERSONAL WORK. 

reception in the Church the coming Sunday. 
Then he went to his father's home and told 
the glad news to his mother and father and 
his folks at home. He was received into the 
Church and became a strong Christian man. 
However, he was always glad to relate the 
incident of his conversion, which he invari- 
ably attributed to the operation of the Holy 
Spirit through the influence of Christian 
song. 

Sent from Heaven. 
I want you to understand that these 
sacred songs are messages sent from heaven. 
As certainly as the ravens brought food to 
Elijah at the mountain brook Cherith, so 
these winged harmonies, God-sent and 
heaven-directed, fly into human lives with the 
bread of eternal life. 

Dr. Ray Palmer. 

By common consent in all American 

hymnology the hymn commencing 

" My faith looks up to Thee, 
Thou Lamb of Calvary," 
126 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

is the best. Its author, Dr. Ray Palmer, 
when a young man just twenty-two years old 
was teaching in a girl's school in New York. 
One day he sat down in his room and wrote 
in his pocket memorandum book the first four 
stanzas that constitute this hymn. He then 
put the memorandum back in his own pocket 
and carried it there for two years, little 
dreaming that he was carrying his own pass- 
port to immortality. This hymn was written 
in December, 1830, just after its author had 
graduated from Yale College. During its 
lifetime of three-quarters of a century it has 
been used in winning a large number of peo- 
ple to Christ. 

The Soldier Saved. 

A Scotch soldier was dying in New Or- 
leans. A Scotch minister was called in to 
offer him the consolations of the gospel. The 
soldier turned on his pillow and said : " Do n't 
talk to me about religion. I don't want to 
hear that kind of talk. ' ' The Scotch preacher 
then began to sing one of the familiar hymns 

127 



PERSONAL WORK. 

of Scotland, a hymn that was composed by 
David Dickinson : 

"O mother, dear Jerusalem, 
When shall I come to Thee ?" 

He sang it to the tune of Dundee. Every- 
body in Scotland knows that tune. "When the 
preacher began to sing the soldier turned 
over on his pillow and said, " Where did you 
hear that?" "My mother taught me that 
when I was a little boy." "So did mine," 
replied the dying man. Immediately the 
foundation of his heart was upturned and he 
yielded himself to Christ. 0, the irresistible 
powers of sacred song! 

Rescue the Pekishing. 
Once Fanny Crosby, the blind hymn 
writer, delivered an address at a mission 
service. At its conclusion she inquired if 
there was a young man in the audience who 
had wandered from his Christian mother's 
teachings and desired to return, to come to 
the platform, where she was standing and 

128 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

kneel with her in prayer. One young man 
came and knelt and was greatly blessed dur- 
ing the prayer that was offered for him by 
Fanny Crosby. That night when she re- 
turned to her room she wrote that immortal 
hymn: 

" Rescue the perishing, 
Care for the dying, 
Snatch them in pity 
From sin and the grave." 

This hymn has proven a mighty factor in 
the world's evangelization. 

Tell Mother I 'll be There. 

When President McKinley received news 
that his mother was dying, he chartered a 
car and telegraphed ahead, ' ' Tell mother I '11 
be there." This message formed the title of 
one of the most popular and effective solos 
sung by evangelistic singers. It is a song 
that is said to have been utilized in convert- 
ing thousands. Charles Alexander, the 
gospel singer, tells his experience with the 

129 



PERSONAL WORK. 

song. He said: "A friend of mine cut it out 
of a magazine and sent it to me. I put it 
in my scrap book, thinking that I might use 
it some time in touching the hearts of men. 
It remained there for a year and I had not 
used it, and I wondered if the place on which 
I had pasted it was not wasted. But one 
night in Newton, Kansas, where I was help- 
ing to conduct a meeting, I was called on 
quickly to sing a solo. The meeting had been 
in progress for some time and I had sung 
most of my effective solos. I thought I 
would try this one, "Tell Mother I '11 be 
There,' ' and see what kind of an effect it 
would have on the audience. Newton is a 
railroad town, and there were a great many 
railroad men in the congregation. Many of 
them were greatly moved by the song. After 
the service a big engineer came down the 
aisle and shook my hand and said that that 
song made him think of a promise that he 
had made to his dear old mother who had 
died a few years ago, that he would meet her 

130 



BBINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

in heaven. He said that he was so glad that 
I sang "Tell Mother I'll be There," and 
that no preaching nor praying nor anything 
else could have touched his heart like that 
song. He promised that if I would sing that 
song every night he would bring the boys 
out, as he believed that song would bring 
them to Christ. He was true to his word, 
and brought a great many railroad men to 
church. I sang it every night and the result 
was that a great many were converted. Mr. 
Alexander said afterward that he sang it in 
his meetings in Australia and other coun- 
tries, and that it was invariably instrumental 
in bringing m£n to Christ. 

Just as I am Without One Plea. 

A little boy came to one of the city mis- 
sionaries in Chicago, holding a well-worn and 
dirty piece of paper in his hand. He said: 
"Please, sir, but father sent me to you to see 
if you would not give me a clean piece of 
paper just like this one." The missionary 

131 



PERSONAL WORK. 

took the paper and looked at it and dis- 
covered that it was a page of a hymn book 
that contained all of that beautiful hyron: 

" Just as I am, without one plea, 
But that Thy blood was shed for me, 
And that Thou bid'st me come to Thee, 
O Lamb of God, I come! I come!" 

After reading it the missionary looked 
down in the innocent, upturned face of the 
child and said, "Why do you want another 
one and a clean one ? ' ' " Well, we found this 
one in sister's pocket after she died. She 
used to sing it to us. I think her Sunday 
school teacher gave it to her. One day 
while she sang it mother became a Christian. 
At another time father became a Christian. 
So we want a clean one. We are going to 
frame it and hang it on the wall." It is 
useless to say that he got a clean one and he 
got it already framed, too, so it could be 
placed on the wall. The beautiful hymn had 
gone forth as a sweet though mighty evan- 
gelizer and won a whole family for Christ. 

132 



BEINGING MEN TO CHEIST. 

The Contested Gamblees. 
In a Western city in a gambling den two 
gamblers were seated at a gaming table, 
playing cards. One was an old man of sixty 
years; the other a young man of twenty- 
eight. It was a late hour of the night. The 
old gambler had won nearly all the yonng 
man's money. While the game continued 
the yonng man began to sing, "I am nearer 
my home to-day than I have ever been be- 
fore." The old gambler listened and then 
said, "Charley, where did yon learn that 
hymn ? " " What hymn ? ' ' inquired the young 
man. "The one you were singing." "0," 
he replied, "I did not know that I was sing- 
ing." Then he began again and sang the 
same stanza. "I learned that at home in the 
Sunday school. Then my mother used to 
sing it to me, as it was one of her favorites." 
"Yes," said the old man, "I used to hear 
that back in the old church in the town where 
I was raised." Then he said: "Here, 
Charley, is the money I have won from you. 
I hope you will not gamble any more. I am 

133 



PEESONAL WORK. 

sure that I have quit and quit for good. 
From this time on I will be a Christian man. ' ' 
He kept his word and for a number of years 
devoted his life to mission work in the large 
cities. The joy of his life was to save lost 
men from sin. He said that he was converted 
while Charley sang, "Nearer my home to- 
day than I have ever been before. ' ' The 
young man also changed his life and went to 
New York, where he afterward became pastor 
of a very popular Church. The Holy Spirit 
was in that hymn and two souls were won 
for Christ, Afterward these two men were 
instrumental in winning many others for the 
Master's Kingdom. Sacred music is help- 
ing to win this world for Christ. 

Peison Singing. 

Just what relation the duet that Paul and 
Silas sang at midnight in the Philippian 
prison sustained to the jailor's conversion 
we do not know. Perhaps it bears no rela- 
tion whatever. But we certainly do know 
that gospel songs of Christian workers in 

134 



BEINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

prison, jail, and penitentiary have been in- 
strumental in leading a multitude of lost men 
and women from sin to righteousness and 
started them on the right way to heaven. 

Paganini. 

Once Paganini, the famous Italian violin- 
ist, stood before a large and select audience 
in Paris upon which he desired to make a 
great and favorable impression. But while 
he was rendering his choice musical selec- 
tion one string of his violin broke, then the 
second, then the third, until he had only one 
string left. Stepping to the front of the ros- 
trum he said, "Ladies and gentlemen, one 
string and Paganini.' ' Then immediately 
such beautiful music as rolled from that 
musical instrument charmed and delighted 
the cultivated ear of the audience. Some- 
times when the preaching is poor and the 
praying feeble and the working spirit of the 
Church is inactive, and the musical string is 
all that there is left, the great Master will 
so use it as to give strength to the sermon, 

135 



PERSONAL WORK. 

faith to the prayer, and activity to the Church 
work until a tired, weary, and discouraged 
congregation is stirred into a mighty action 
and charges on to victory. 

Saul's Insanity. 

When King Saul was sad, melancholy, 
and discouraged, the musical strains of 
David's harp would roll out on the air in 
beautiful harmony and drive away the evil 
spirit, rescuing Israel's king from his dan- 
gerous fits of insanity. The managers of our 
insane asylums tell us that music is one of 
the best therapeutics for a diseased mind. 
That it is an agent frequently utilized by the 
Holy Spirit has been demonstrated a million 
times in the history of the world. The 
musical factor is a mighty force that the 
Church can use in catching men for Christ. 

Will McDonald. 

In 1870, when Will McDonald was pastor 
of a Church in Brooklyn, New York, he was 
one day sitting in his study in a mediative 

136 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

mood when a hymn came rushing into his 
mind that in a few moments he had written 
down on paper. It was just snch a hymn a.s he 
had long desired and had often prayed for, 
but somehow or other conld not formulate it 
in the language of men. It came to him, how- 
ever, that morning like a divine inspiration. 
Many thousands have been led into the Mas- 
ter's Kingdom during the singing of this 
beautiful composition. It has been translated 
into many languages and sung around the 
globe. The first stanza reads like this : 

" I am coming to the cross, 

I am poor and weak and blind, 
I am counting all but dross, 
I shall full salvation find." 

The Cross. 
It was Sunday morning when the Ameri- 
can fleet captured the harbor of Santiago 
from the Spaniards. On board Admiral 
Sampson's ship they held their usual Sunday 
morning prayers. They always held prayers 
on this ship every Sunday morning. The 
little reading desk where the Bible was kept 

137 



PERSONAL WORK. 

and where the reading was always con- 
ducted had a little cross carved on its top. 
That fatal Sunday morning that little desk 
with its Bible and its cross presented quite 
an unique appearance. Admiral Sampson's 
ship was a little late getting to the scene of 
battle, and as it sailed in on that liquid battle- 
field all around it were signs of Spanish de- 
feat, dead men and disaster. They went into 
the battle so hastily that no one had taken 
time to put that little desk away. It was 
a very small desk and could be easily moved 
about by any one. As this warship sailed 
into the scene of conflict there was death and 
destruction on the very face of the waters. 
The battle was soon won by the Americans, 
and the Spaniards were terribly defeated. 
Among the many things that were dead, 
burning, and wrecked that floated on the wat- 
ers was a Spanish sailor, who was swimming 
for his life. He was an enemy. The Ameri- 
cans watched him. "What a struggle he was 
making for his life ! There was nothing for 
him to cling to, and the shore was a long way 

138 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

off. According to the rules of war the 
Americans had no time to save his life. Be- 
sides he was their enemy. But some of the 
sailors on Sampson *s ship watched him curi- 
ously and sympathetically until at last one 
of the tender-hearted Americans could stand 
it no longer. Picking up the little reading 
desk and pitching it over the side of the ship 
into the sea as near as possible to the strug- 
gling Spaniard, he said : ' i Here, friend, cling 
to that. Cling to the cross and it will take 
you safe to the shore.' ' Of course this 
Spaniard could not understand those Eng- 
lish words that were so kindly spoken to him 
by one who seemed to be his enemy, but that 
did not make any difference with him. He 
seized the cross and soon made his way to the 
shore. As we look out on the wide sea of 
human life and behold the struggling, sink- 
ing, perishing, multitudes trying without 
Christ to reach the eternal shore of heaven, 
we anxiously, earnestly, and sympathetically 
watch them, and it makes no difference if 
they are Spaniards, Americans, Asiatics, 

139 



PERSONAL WORK. 

African friends or enemies, we will throw the 
cross to them — throw to them the saving 
truths of the gospel of Christ. And clinging 
to the cross they can not sink, they can not 
perish, for He said, "He that helieveth on 
Me shall not perish, but have everlasting 
life." 

The Life Next to Me. 

A young man professed religion and 
united with the Church. When some one 
asked him whatever induced him to take such 
a step, he said that it was the life of the 
young man whose desk was next to his. "We 
are both bookkeepers," he said, "with mod- 
erate salaries, and are constantly in contact 
with conditions that would naturally disturb 
a young man's life. But he is always so kind, 
so strong, so manly, and so patient that he 
is one of the most beautiful characters in the 
world to me. I was fretful, weak, impatient, 
and most of the time miserable, so I con- 
cluded that I would try and make my life 
as much like his as possible, and the result 

140 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

is that I have discovered that the only force 
in the universe that can do this for me is 
the power of Jesus Christ. I have made the 
test and consequently thoroughly demon- 
strated the fact that the Christian religion 
is the only proper solution to the problems 
of human life. 

He key M. Stanley. 

Henry M. Stanley was not a Christian 
when he was sent out by the New York Herald 
to darkest Africa to find David Livingstone, 
who was supposed to be lost. He found Liv- 
ingstone, and shortly after this found Christ. 
Stanley said: "When I found Livingstone I 
only found a sick, weary traveler who was 
truly a Christian missionary. He never 
spoke a word to me about being a Christian. 
It was not his words or his preaching, but 
it was just Livingstone that won me to Christ. 
I was not a Christian when I found him, but 
I had not been with him very long before 
I was worshiping Livingstone 's God, trusting 
his Savior and reading his Bible." Great is 

141 



PEESONAL WORK. 

the power of a consecrated personality in 
attracting other persons to Christ. 

I Have Seest the Gospel. 

"Did you ever hear the gospel before!" 
a Christian missionary inquired of a highly 
respectable Chinaman, whom he had never 
seen in his mission before. ' i No, ' ' he replied, 
"I have never heard the gospel before, but I 
have seen it." "You have seen it?" in- 
quired the missionary. "I don't understand 
you. What do you mean?" "Well, I had 
a neighbor who lived near me several miles 
from this mission. He was a very bad man, 
addicted to the opium habit. He was cruel 
to his family and disagreeable to his neigh- 
bors. His language was bad. If you mis- 
treated him he was sure to do you a great 
damage. But he came down here to your 
mission and said that he got acquainted with 
your Christ. He returned and destroyed his 
idols. He prays, reads his Bible, and sings. 
He is a kind husband and an agreeable neigh- 
bor and one of the best citizens that we have 

142 



BBINGING MEN TO CHBIST. 

in our community. He became a Christian a 
year ago and has been a good man ever 
since. No, I have never heard the gospel 
before, but I have seen it in this man's life." 

George Poe. 

George Poe was a Missouri farmer. He 
was a profane, dissipated, godless man. His 
unkindness to his wife and four children was 
at times the worst of cruelty. His neigh- 
bors avoided as far as they could any deal- 
ings with him on account of his disagreeable 
and pugilistic disposition. He was so repul- 
sive and quarrelsome that no one cared to be 
in his company. His habits of dissipation 
and drunken extravagance had reduced him 
to financial bankruptcy, and consequently 
placed a heavy mortgage on his farm. Poe 
attended a camp-meeting, was gloriously con- 
verted, and from that day on to the end of his 
life was an exceedingly good man. He never 
drank another drop, never swore another 
oath, and was never seen to manifest to any 
one a spirit of unkindness. In company with 

143 



PERSONAL WORK. 

liis family lie attended church and Sunday 
school every Sunday. He read his Bible, 
paid his debts until he could truly "look the 
whole world in the face and say he owed not 
any man. ' ' Instead of being the debtor, now 
he became the creditor and loaned money to 
the men from whom he had once borrowed. 
A kind father and husband, an accommodat- 
ing 1 neighbor, an honest and highly respected 
business man, he was recognized as one of 
the best citizens in the county. Two years 
after Poe's conversion Captain Duncan, a 
noted infidel who lived in that community, 
created considerable excitement by coming to 
church one Sunday morning and making 
public application for Church membership, 
and announced to the congregation that the 
only thing that influenced him to become a 
Christian was the conversion and life of 
George Poe. "I watched him," he said, 
"with the eye of a critic and the eye of an 
enemy, for I was sure that he was laboring 
under a delusion, and that there was nothing 
but foolishness in the religion he professed. 

144 



BBINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

But that man's life proved to me that there 
was something genuine and supernatural in 
the religion of Jesus Christ. Then I sought 
Him myself with all my heart and I found 
Him, and I know now myself that Jesus 
Christ is the Savior of men. ' ' In this world 
no man's life is without power for good or 
for evil, for "no man liveth to himself," is 
the truthful declaration of the Word of God. 

The Converted Saloonkeeper. 

During a revival meeting in Chicago a 
man arose in the congregation and said: 
"When I say that I have been a wicked, reck- 
less, ungodly man, every one in this con- 
gregation who is acquainted with my life 
knows that I have told the truth. I thought 
that perhaps I had gone so far from God that 
I could never return. But when my neighbor, 
the saloonkeeper, came to this meeting, two 
weeks ago, and was made a clean, pure, good 
man, I thought there was a chance for me. 
So last night I came and was gloriously 
saved from sin. I am glad to say that Jesus 

145 



PERSONAL WORK. 

can save the worst of sinners. " Whenever 
a sinner is converted it invariably excites 
hope for salvation in the life of some one 
else. In character building one of the mighty 
forces in this world is human example. 

Influence. 

A business man said: "My home in the 
city was suburban. For the benefit of the ex- 
ercise I always walked to my place of busi- 
ness, which was located in the center of the 
city. In order to take a short cut I walked 
across a vacant field. The path across the 
field was very crooked, because the first per- 
son who crossed it had walked that way and 
then every one else who followed walked in 
his footsteps. I, too, always walked in the 
crooked path. But one day in the winter 
when there was a deep snow, I was the first 
one to walk across the field and I made a 
snow path as straight as an arrow. Possibly 
five hundred people walked in that path that 
day, and when the snow disappeared they 
still walked in the straight path." Here is 

146 



BRINGING MEN TO CHBIST. 

an example of the power of influence. Men 
do things that others do. In walking across 
the fields of human life if our pathway is 
morally crooked, remember that others, walk- 
ing in our footsteps, will go on to destruction. 
But if our pathway is morally straight, 
others will follow us onward and upward to 
eternal salvation. 

Light and Noise. 

A man who did not know very much about 
electricity had his house wired and a battery 
installed for the purpose of ringing his vari- 
ous doorbells. It worked perfectly and never 
failed to ring the bells at the time desired. 
Then he thought that if a battery could ring 
a bell it could make a light. He ran the wires 
from the battery up into his study and ad- 
justing a globe in the fashion of an electric 
light, turned on the current and was greatly 
disappointed to find that it would not pro- 
duce light. Just at this time an electrician 
came in and, seeing his predicament, said, 
6 ' What is the matter ? " " I do n 't know, ' ' re- 

147 



PERSONAL WORK. 

plied the man. "I have a battery here that 
for a long time has been ringing all my door- 
bells, and has never failed me once. So I 
thought it would light my study. I tried 
it and have failed. " The electrician looked 
at him and said, "Well, didn't you know 
that it takes more power to make a light than 
it does to make a noise?" It takes a great 
deal more religious power to make a beauti- 
ful Christian light in our every-day living 
than to make a loud noise by oral profession. 
But oral profession and every-day living are 
both necessary elements in the construction 
of Christian character. 

The Faithful Teacher. 

An elderly lady taught a Sunday school 
class of young men. One Sunday when the 
weather was bad she felt an inclination to 
stay at home and not meet her class. Some- 
thing suggested to her that a lady of her age 
should not venture out in such weather ; that 
it would be injurious to her health. But 

148 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

while reflecting over the situation she remem- 
bered that many a day when the weather had 
been much worse she had gone to the store, 
the shop, and the market, so she felt that it 
was her duty to go. Why should she stay 
away from Sunday school? As the Sunday 
school hour approached she felt more and 
more strongly that it would be a sin for her 
to stay at home, so she determined to go. 
Putting on her rain coat and rubbers and 
taking her Bible, she was soon at the church. 
The attendance was small. There were only 
two boys in her class. They were big boys, 
one of them was quite a young man. She 
taught them with her usual earnestness, ef- 
ficiency, and enthusiasm and then returned 
home in a somewhat discouraged mood, feel- 
ing very weary from her efforts to do good. 
This was at the time of the beginning of the 
Civil War. A few weeks after this rainy 
Sunday, the older of the two scholars that 
constituted that class enlisted in the army. 
He marched away with an infantry brigade 

149 



PERSONAL WORK. 

to the war. In one of those terrible battles 
down South he was mortally wounded. He 
was carried to the hospital and in a few days 
he died. He told the hospital doctor that he 
was a Christian, and sent a message to his 
mother and to his Sunday school teacher. 
"Tell my Sunday school teacher," he said, 
"that I became a Christian one Sunday 
afternoon after she so earnestly taught me 
and another boy. We were the only ones in 
her class that day. She came and taught us 
so earnestly and so kindly that a few hours 
after that Sunday school dismissed I gave 
my heart to God and became a Christian. 
Tell her that if she had stayed away that 
Sunday that very likely I would have been 
lost." The date of his conversion was the 
same date on which his teacher was so 
tempted to stay home. That teacher said 
that after she received that dying boy's mes- 
sage nothing short of the impossible ever 
kept her away from her duties in the house 
of God. Remember that faithfulness in the 
service of God is always rewarded. "Those 

150 



BRINGING MEN TO CHEIST. 

who turn many to righteousness will shine 
as the stars in the firmament forever and for- 
ever. ' 9 

The Converted Scholar. 

A Sunday school teacher had just finished 
teaching her class of bright, intelligent young 
ladies. She was also a teacher in the public 
schools and had taught five days of the pre- 
ceding week. She was tired, but believed that 
it was her duty, regardless of her physical 
and mental weariness, to remain for the 
preaching services. She induced her class to 
remain, for it was important that they should 
hear the pastor's sermon. The Sunday 
school was dismissed. One of the scholars 
said to her: "Please, Miss Mary, will you 
go with me to the class room? I want to talk 
to you for a little while." The teacher was 
tempted to say, "No, I am too tired to en- 
gage in conversation at this time. " But look- 
ing down into the pleading eyes of this ear- 
nest-faced scholar she did not say what she 
felt like saying, but said, "Yes, I will go with 

151 



PERSONAL WORK. 

yon right now." To her surprise when they 
reached the class room, the girl said, "I 
want to become a Christian and I would like 
for you to tell me how." The teacher told 
her how, prayed with her, and during the 
prayer the girl gave her heart to God. 
"Now," she said, "I want to join the Church 
this morning." During the preaching serv- 
ice the new convert occupied the same pew 
with her teacher. At the close of the sermon 
the pastor extended an invitation to any who 
desired Church membership to make the ap- 
plication by coming forward to the chancel. 
The new convert responded to the invita- 
tion. She was received into the Church, and 
afterwards became an active, useful, earnest 
Christian, and was instrumental in leading 
others to Christ. This teacher frequently 
said, "We seldom become too tired to do suc- 
cessful work for Christ," Some of our best 
work is done when our feelings suggest a 
rest. It is God working with us, in us, 
through us, that brings success. 



152 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

A Ship's Ceew Coevekted. 
A Christian lady in Chicago invited her 
neighbor, a poor Swedish woman, to accom- 
pany her to the Wednesday evening prayer- 
meeting. This resulted in the conversion of 
the Swedish woman. Her husband was a 
cook on board a vessel that ran on the lakes. 
When he returned home he accompanied her 
to church and was also converted. Although 
he was a cook he was a man of strong will 
power and a magnetic personality, and was 
a natural leader of men. He became an en- 
thusiastic Christian and an earnest per- 
sonal worker. The men with whom he 
worked and for whom he cooked were the 
ones he especially tried to win for Christ. 
He was exceedingly successful and in a few 
weeks every one of the ship's crew except 
the first mate was converted. Then they all 
concentrated their prayers and Christian in- 
fluence on him, and in a short time he, too, 
surrendered to the Master. The ship sailed 
out from its Chicago harbor on Lake Michi- 
gan with its entire crew in the Kingdom of 

153 



PEESONAL WORK. 

God. It was truly like the Old Ship of Zion 
on the sea of human life. Remember that a 
prayer-meeting invitation will sometimes re- 
sult in an eternity of good. 

A Wooden Chkistian. 

There was an old man who was an ef- 
ficient personal worker. They accused him 
one day of talking to a wooden Indian that 
was in front of a cigar store, and inviting it 
to church. In reply to the accusation, the 
old man said: "It may be true. My eye- 
sight is poor and I may have made a mistake 
and invited a wooden Indian to church, but 
I would rather be guilty of this mistake than 
to be a wooden Christian and be guilty of 
the sin of never inviting any one to church. ' ' 
And the old man was right. 

Like Zaccheus. 

A certain Christian man said: "I some- 
times feel like a spiritual dwarf. While 
mingling with the rushing throngs of this 
earth I become a Zaccheus in stature. But 

154 



BEINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

whenever I experience those impressions of 
diminutiveness, I invariably climb the syca- 
more tree of personal work, and then I in- 
evitably get a view of the Christ and hear 
His precious voice saying, "I am going to be 
your guest to-day and in this service of per- 
sonal work abide with you in the joys of 
companionship. ' 9 

When Sugar is Sweet. 

"I am sweet," said the sugar. No, it is 
not, and never will be until it is put into the 
coffee, the tea, or some liquid and begins to 
dissolve. Sugar is never sweet until it gives 
itself away. "I am a Christian," says some 
one. No, you are not a Christian until you 
plunge yourself into Christian service and 
give yourself away for Christ. 

Edward Sharp 's Conversion. 

Edward Sharp was twenty-one years old. 
The Sharp home was made bright and joyous 
that night by a happy gathering of young 
people, in celebration of Edward's birthday. 

155 



PERSONAL WORK. 

The party was over and the guests had de- 
parted. To be present on this occasion, 
Charles, the older brother, had come from the 
city. The two brothers were in a room to- 
gether, with no one else present. Charles 
said to his yonng brother : ' ' Ed, yon are now 
twenty-one years old. Yon have reached 
your majority. I am glad to see my brother 
so popular with everybody and to see him 
such a fine-looking young man. Ed, did you 
ever think about being a Christian ?" "Yes, 
I have," answered Ed. "Suppose that you 
become a Christian to-night and make this 
your spiritual birthday." An earnest con- 
versation of at least an hour's length fol- 
lowed. Then they knelt and Charles offered 
an affectionate, tender prayer for his broth- 
er's conversion. The prayer was answered 
and Edward Sharp was converted. Charles 
afterward said, "I came all the way from the 
city on that occasion to lead my brother to 
Christ, and I succeeded. " May God raise up 
a multitude of such brothers to lead their 
kinsmen to Christ! 

156 



BRINGING MEN TO CHRIST. 

The Master 's Touch. 
Once Mendelssohn went to see the great 
Freiburg organ. As he was not known to the 
old custodian he was refused permission to 
perform on the instrument. After much 
earnest persuasion, however, he was reluc- 
tantly granted permission to play only a few 
notes. Mendelssohn took his place and began 
to operate the instrument. Almost instantly 
the most wonderful music came bursting 
forth from the organ and the old custodian 
stood spellbound. Then coming up beside 
the great musician he inquired his name. 
"Mendelssohn," was the reply. "Mendels- 
sohn!" exclaimed the old man in amaze- 
ment, "is it possible that I refused the great 
master the privilege of playing on the Frei- 
burg organ?" The vital chords of human 
life touched by the powerful hand of Jesus 
Christ can send forth music in Christian 
character and mighty influence that make 
men good and angels shout. It is too fre- 
quently that we refuse the miracle perform- 
ing influences of the Master's touch. 

157 



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